Tell Naught But Lies
by duj
Summary: Alternative DH. They turned as one, suddenly aware that Harry had dropped out of the conversation and was staring again at the eaglehead of the key, studying its fierce eyes as if he could see into them. He didn't notice them noticing him...
1. Survive the Night

SURVIVE THE NIGHT

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

**This fic is a sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise". It begins immediately after Snape's escape in HBP. As we know little of the inner workings of an Unbreakable Vow, I've chosen to assume that it exerts a magical compulsion on its maker. **

Ignoring the blood seeping from three great rents in the shoulder of his robes, Severus Snape snarled at the other three Death Eaters.

"You incompetent idiots! Your bungling brought the castle's defenders down on top of us. How many have we lost?"

"Aylett and Haddon were still fighting when we left," Alecto volunteered, after a dubious glance at her brother.

"Gibbon's dead. I saw the body." Augustus Goyle shook his blond head. "And Greyback and Yaxley were down. Not dead, I think."

"You _think?_ Five possibly dead or captured and the rest of you seen? Imbeciles! You'll all have to go into hiding immediately until our master summons you. I'll make the report on this unmitigated disaster."

Three sighs of relief, for none of the three wanted to face the Dark Lord with news of failure, and two pops later – the Carrows had Disapparated together – he turned on the miserable boy beside him and hoisted him erect with one hand.

"Lower your shields, boy, or I'll rip your mind apart," he snapped.

"You – you killed –"

"Yes, I did the job you were too weak to perform. Look at me." Black eyes burned behind two wings of greasy hair.

Draco averted his head.

"I – you can't. I know Occlumency, I – I won't show you." _The headmaster offered to save us. He could have saved us. If Snape sees that!_

"Do you think your feeble skills can keep me out?"

Draco forced his shoulders straight. Malfoys didn't cower.

"They did till now," he muttered.

"Idiot boy! You were under my dear employer's protection. Do you think I couldn't have ripped your plans out of your mind, if I hadn't wished to keep my cover with the old fool?'

"You – you can't. There's no time. The Dark Lord will be angry that you kept him waiting." He gulped down rising bile. _Letting the Dark Lord see those memories would be even worse. _

"He won't begrudge me fifteen minutes to collect the stragglers, if any make it out." As he spoke, the dark man forced up Draco's chin and glared into his eyes. "Will you show me or must I make you?"

The boy gulped and all resistance crumpled. His aunt was wrong. Snape was not weak; he was not foolish; and, above all, he was not incapable. And if he threatened to rip one's mind apart, he meant it. He dropped his shields and let his godfather ravage his most recent memories.

_Draco, Draco, you are not a killer … a clever plan, a very clever plan …"_

"_I got the idea from the Mudblood Granger … I've got to do it! He'll kill me!"_

"_I can help you, Draco. Come over to the right side … We can hide you … your mother likewise …Your father is safe in Azkaban …It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters_ "

Snape's hand moved from Draco's chin to his trembling arm, the thin fingers gripping like a pincers.

"Stay behind me," he said. "Don't stand up or speak unless spoken to and if you and your mother both survive the night, I trust you'll remember who compassed it."

Draco's mouth dropped open. _Was that a promise?_

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

The Dark Lord was alone but for Nagini, who hissed and slithered past Snape and Draco to the door.

"Severus. You have news for me."

Snape kissed the Dark Lord's hem and rose from his knees. Five paces behind, Draco pressed his face to the floor and waited.

"It is done, Master," Snape said. "Exactly as you predicted."

Draco's eyes widened. _What? As he predicted?_

Unheeding, Snape continued, "The Vow led me precisely where and when I was needed, not a moment too soon – or too late – and the old fool, believing in me to the last, is dead by my hand."

Flat nostrils flared and red eyes gleamed.

"And Greyback?"

"Dead or captured, I assume. Goyle saw him fall as we escaped the castle. We waited fifteen minutes at the designated meeting place, but he didn't turn up."

Voldemort's mouth curved up smugly.

"How – unfortunate." _For him. _"Then it is up to me to appoint his successor, as per our agreement. Wulfrem seems malleable enough, if a trifle inexperienced. The werewolves have sometimes needed a little help in coordinating their operations with ours. Perhaps he could use a liaison assistant. You'll be pleased to be rid of Wormtail, won't you? It's about time I had some use out of that hand I granted him."

Snape bowed.

"You are most gracious, my Lord."

"Our other – painful losses?" That slitlike mouth was not made for smirking.

"Gibbon is confirmed dead, three more apparently dead or captured, and I've sent Goyle and the Carrows into hiding. They were seen."

Voldemort shrugged, his eyes on the man's bloodied coat.

"They'll keep. You're injured?"

"A few paltry scratches, my Lord. Hagrid's hippogriff attacked me as I ran. Hagrid himself was occupied with his burning house."

Lamplight gleamed off bone-white skin. Voldemort's mouth curled higher.

"Rubeus Hagrid? How very fitting, to lose his home and his best friend in one night. It seems you have many pleasant sights to show me."

Obediently, his servant met his gaze.

Draco's fists clenched tighter. If the Dark Lord saw everything the man had seen in Draco's memories, death would be the best-case scenario.

"_I've got back-up. There are Death Eaters in your school tonight_ _… Right under your nose and you never noticed … He's a double-agent, you stupid old man, he isn't working for you, you just think he is …"_

"_We must agree to differ on that …" _

Voldemort laughed out loud. Draco flinched, his innards churning.

"To the last, indeed!" Voldemort said. "What more?"

_Severus … Severus … please…"_

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

"And he actually pleaded for mercy?" Voldemort crowed. Severus allowed himself a thin smile. "He begged you to save him? The old hypocrite! I knew his fearlessness was just pretence. 'Things much worse than death', indeed!"

"Indeed, my Lord," his servant agreed.

"_It's over, time to go! ... __Run, Draco!"_

"_Incendio!" An explosive bang and a dancing orange light spilled over them._

"_Fang's in there, yeh evil –!"_

""_Now come! It is time to be gone, before the Ministry turns up –!"_

The Dark Lord laughed again.

"Excellent! You have done well, Severus. There remains only to deal with the useless spawn of the fool who wasted my younger self –"

Snape did not move, yet somehow contrived to be standing between the Dark Lord's wand and its target. Draco couldn't breathe.

"A moment, my Lord, I beg." Snape's voice was as oily as his hair. "You'll recall I expressed concern at the time over the Vow's second clause. I underestimated Narcissa's cleverness, I admit."

The Dark Lord paused.

"It's still effective, then?"

"I believe so. I feel the compulsion yet, my Lord. It seems I am still bound to the boy's protection. A most fatal weakness; punish him as you choose, but know that his demise will be mine."

Voldemort's wand hand dropped and he frowned.

"Pity. Perhaps we can persuade her to undo it."

Draco bit his lip almost clear through. _No! Mum!_

"She is a very loving mother, my Lord," Snape interposed. "And with a backbone of steel."

"You think she would endure torture and die in his place?" The snaky head nodded. "Very likely, the Blacks are martyrs all for a cause. No doubt you've thought of a plan?"

"If it please you, my Lord. Let him but swear an Unbreakable Vow to my protection and your service and we can safely send him to spy in my place."

Red eyes opened wide and a gash of a mouth twisted into incredulity

"You think they could be enticed to accept him, even after this?"

"Perhaps, my Lord, if he turns himself in, with information leading to the capture of some of your more expendable recruits." Black eyes met red in shared cold mirth. "Imperio is a plea that has served us well in the past and I am a ready scapegoat. Let him blame his guilt on me; it cannot increase _my_ danger. At most, they'll throw him into Azkaban, where he'll be safe enough not to trigger my Vow. And who knows? He proved himself not completely without use in his previous task; if he argues well, they may even give him a pardon. Especially since he has not yet merited your Mark."

A single hot tear fell on Draco's sleeve before he brushed it away angrily. He'd wanted that Mark so much for so long and been so proud when Aunt Bella temporarily transfigured the skin of his left forearm to ensure Borgin's cooperation. He'd been so confident after that early success, boasting to all his friends on the train, taking care not to let them see by his bare arm that it was a reward to be earned, not an honour already bestowed. Now all he wanted was tonight back and the dotty old headmaster hiding his parents somewhere safe.

"Ingenious, indeed. Narcissa, meanwhile, to remain a hostage to his good offices." Voldemort pondered. "Very well. Do it now and I shall be Bonder."

Snape bowed his head.

"As you will, Master. Rise, Draco, and kneel with me before our Lord."

Draco shuffled forward, back straight but head down, and knelt down where he was shown. He didn't want this, he wanted out, but what choice was there? If he refused, it would be his mum dying in front of his eyes, in horrible, screaming agony, and himself too, if her resolution failed. No, dying from the Vow, if he absolutely couldn't bring himself to keep it, was the better option.

His godfather knelt too, grasping Draco's right hand with his own, and Voldemort stood over them, the tip of his wand touching their linked hands.

"Will you, Draco," said Snape, "be loyal and true to the one whose mercy has sheltered you this night, aiding and furthering his cause with your life, if necessary?"

"I will," Draco answered.

A tongue of red flame shot from the wand and wound around their clasped hands like the swirl of a peppermint candy cane. Draco suppressed a nervous giggle.

"Will you repay protection with protection, guarding me from all harm or betrayal for as long as my true master –" Snape's eyes flicked to Voldemort and back. The snake-man gave a nod of approval. "– or I shall desire?"

"I will."

A second swirl of flame followed the first. Draco watched it unfurl. The two flames entwined were like the necklace he'd bought Pansy for her sixteenth birthday.

"And will you do all in your power to assist me in serving my true master, keeping my secrets and performing my will without question, let or hindrance?"

"I will."

A third swirl of flame leapt from the wand to wind around its fellows, as thick as a hangman's noose.

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

As they landed in front of his house at Spinner's End, Snape stumbled a little. Keeping his balance by dint of leaning a little more heavily on the boy, he pulled him inside and locked the door.

"Wormtail! Wormtail?"

_No answer. Good, he must have been called already. In a little while, the boy could collect the rat's few possessions and pitch them into the street, but first things first._

He lurched to the nearest chair and sat down.

"_Accio_ Firewhisky and a glass."

They flew into his hand. He poured himself a shot and leaned back, closing his eyes briefly. He would need the salve and bandages too, but that would have to wait. His coat was too tight to remove one-handedly and Draco had a more urgent task before him.

"Don't stand there gaping," he snapped, his eyes once more open. "I need a Secret-Keeper immediately. The small, blue book on the topmost shelf behind you, _Fidelius While Burners Roam; _find it and start practising the incantation."

Draco stared, then jumped and turned towards the bookshelves. It shouldn't have been too hard – most of the books were bound in black or brown leather – except the top shelf was above his reach and he wasn't sure he could summon the one right book out of hundreds. Sighing, he Accioed a chair from the kitchen.

"It was all a trick," he grumbled as his hand hovered along the top shelf. "You never expected me to do it."

"If you didn't realise that till now, then I think the less of your intelligence." _Another shot and another; eventually, the pain would dull to a throb._

"You knew all along what I was up to. All those times you called me in and pretended to try to interrogate me, you knew –"

"I knew exactly as much as I needed to be able to face both my masters without lying. The Vow was a set-up, on both sides. They approved it – separately, of course – before I made it. Dumbledore was playing for time – he knew his was limited – time for me to keep on spying and you to change your mind, and the Dark Lord wanted me able to plead ignorance. Both knew the Vow would drag me in at the pivotal moment and both trusted me to settle it to their advantage." His long-fingered hand clenched on the arm of his chair, but his mouth smirked. "But one of them was only fooling himself."

Draco found the book and started riffling through the pages.

"Do you feel it, Draco?" the man sneered. "Do you feel the tingle of compulsion through your veins, forcing you to your promise? It's there always, but it becomes stronger whenever action is required. It kept me in my rooms tonight till I was needed and led me to the Tower at precisely the optimal moment. In its own way, as effective as sipping Felix Felicis, only much more long-lasting."

Draco shivered, but he didn't take his eyes off his book. He couldn't. _Ah, here was the spell._ He began conning it feverishly, his wand hand practising the unfamiliar moves with surety and grace.

"The Dark Lord is a master manipulator. He knew exactly what to tell your mother and your dear aunt to send them haring off to me. And then I sprang the trap. Your aunt was so obligingly predictable, I barely even needed to hint them in the desired direction. Of course, she also insisted on training you for the task," Snape continued. "And you followed her lead, declining my proffered assistance, enabling me to tell my dear employer with utmost truth that you refused to tell me your plans."

The boy scowled at him briefly, then returned to rehearsing the incantation under his breath.

"How delighted Bellatrix will be to learn that she was so essential to my success," Snape mused aloud, his thin lips still resolutely smirking. "How pleasantly surprised to discover her part in cementing me in the Dark Lord's favour. I must remember to tell her some time."

The Firewhisky was almost gone. He poured another shot. The boy could not betray him now and, once the Fidelius was performed, he'd have an impregnable safe haven. Neither Dark Lord nor Aurors nor that pestilential brat of Dumbledore's adoration could find him here. And the girl? That blasted know-it-all child who, by now, must know what he'd done since leaving her. Would the plan hold? Did she trust him still? She could wait. She'd have to.

**A/N The Legilimised glimpses are from HBP, chs 27 and 28, "The Lightning-Struck Tower" and "The Flight of the Prince". The quote, "Things much worse than death," is from OotP, ch 36, "The Only One He Ever Feared". The Unbreakable Vow is based on the description in HBP, ch 2, "Spinner's End".**

**Canon doesn't specify whether the Death Eaters that invaded Hogwarts were masked. It would seem logical that they were, but descriptions like "four people in black robes", "brutal-faced man", "the spell hit him in the face" seem to imply otherwise. Just to be on the safe side, I've had Snape say they were "seen" rather than "unmasked".**

**I've chosen to identify the huge blond as Goyle Senior (a first name of Augustus is not canon), even though he seems far more competent a fighter than one would expect any progenitor of Gregory to be, and Amycus and Alecto as the Carrow twins. Thanks to Red Hen's careful scrutiny of the fight scene that Harry chased Snape and Draco through, I've assumed the existence of two extra unidentified Death Eaters, who**** were fighting Ron and Lupin while Ginny fought Amycus, Minerva Alecto and Tonks the blond (Greyback and brutal-face, whom I've identified as Yaxley, had already been Petrified) **–** and I've named them Aylett and Haddon. **


	2. A Likely Story

A LIKELY STORY

**Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

Hermione lay awake on the sticky, plastic-covered, velveteen sofa in the Dursleys' lounge room, staring up through the dark at the ceiling, her blanket half-under her and her nails clenched into her palms, pondering the same questions that had been keeping her awake for three weeks.

Where was Professor Snape and why hadn't he contacted her? And if – when he did, what was she going to say?

She'd expected to be doing something useful by now, Horcrux-hunting or exploring Godric's Hollow or hiding out from Death Eaters or whatever. Instead, they were holed up at the Dursleys with nothing to show for it but a fight with her parents, who hadn't appreciated discovering that the "minor disturbances_"_ of her letters were actually part of a major war, centred around one of her inseparable best friends; an even nastier fight with the Dursleys, who hadn't wanted an extra two "freaks" living in their house; and an imminent Apparition test for Ron that the Ministry had refused to schedule before July 1. At least they'd managed to notify the Office for Underage Magic that two adult magic-users were on the premises.

And every night, two familiar faces were on the news, one glaring blackly over a large nose, one pale and pointed and petulant, as the BBC announcer warned, "…armed and dangerous. If seen, do not approach under any circumstances." She'd quickly taken to avoiding any room with a TV or radio in it.

This was not a good time to be seen visiting Knockturn Alley or trying to buy an unregistered wand, not with Aurors everywhere taking down names for suspicious behaviour. Harry needed a new wand before he faced Voldemort again, but he'd prefer not to have to explain why or to owe the Ministry any favours. And then there was the Order of the Phoenix and its surprising new leader.

"Did they tell you where headquarters is now?" she'd asked the boys, as soon as they'd closed the door on their protesting hosts that first day. A Fidelius went into stasis with its Secret Keeper's death, but secret didn't necessarily mean still useful – or safe.

"Same place," muttered Harry, shifting on his narrow, lumpy bed. "Snape still can't bring anyone with him or tell them how to find it and the new Head thinks they should keep it there."

"They've rigged up an alarm though," Ron added. "In case, he tries to infiltrate by himself. Then they'd catch him."

"He's not that stupid," Harry said, leaning against the wall. It was really a very small bedroom.

"Didn't say he was!" Ron fired up.

"But how can they recruit anyone new without the Secret Keeper?" Hermione asked. "I thought Dumbledore's entrance-notes were always destroyed immediately after use." There wouldn't be much point having a Secret Keeper if the secret was left lying around in written form.

"Oh, that," Ron said. "Apparently, the Fidelius was vested in the position of Head of the Order, not in Dumbledore personally, so that's not a problem."

"And who is the new Head of the Order?" asked Hermione, mystified by their alternating airiness and tension.

"Ah, well," Ron said proudly. "That'd be my dad."

_Mr Weasley was the new Head of the Order?_

She smiled as widely as she could.

"That's – umm, that's great, Ron. Wow." She glanced at Harry. "Umm, remember how great he was at the World Cup," she said rather desperately. "So quick to act and so commanding. And – And they all listened to him when Mr Crouch tried to blame it on us."

"See, mate," Ron told Harry. "I told you. Even Hermione agrees."

Harry and Hermione shared an agonised grimace.

"So, umm, where do I sleep?" Hermione asked brightly. "You've only got one spare mattress in here."

And here she was, three weeks on, hot and sweaty and waiting. Was the professor even still alive? He'd been mauled by Buckbeak during his escape. Could he possibly have lost too much blood to Apparate safely? Had Voldemort Crucioed him on arrival for disobediently taking Malfoy's job or, worse, killed him to eliminate a possible rival? If he wasn't dead or badly injured somewhere, then what was he waiting for? He'd said he'd contact her. Should she stop waiting and message him instead?

As she brooded, a shimmery silver scorpion flew through the closed window and landed on her wrist. And there he was in her head, sour, sharp, prickly and sarcastic.

_Your parents' back garden. Half an hour._

He was there when Hermione Apparated to the bare spot of lawn next to the potted aspidistra though she didn't see him till he spoke, so quietly she almost missed it.

"You're three minutes late."

She whirled. In the unlit leafy darkness by the tall hedge, he was a darker shadow, but for the sliver of face visible through wings of curtaining hair.

"How dare you make me meet here!" she hissed, her hand closing on her wand. "You know I'm trying to keep them out of it!" All her doubts and questions rose up into her throat to choke her.

He cast Muffliato before replying.

"Cease your hysterics, Miss Granger. I was not followed and not even the Ministry can track Apparition trails."

She glowered at him.

"But why here, of all places?"

His chin lifted. She found she was looking up his nostrils and tossed her head to look past him at dark leaves. Leaves didn't smirk and snort and sneer.

"A moment's thought would have told you, if you ever used your head for thinking," he replied. "It's one place you may visit as often as you like without arousing anyone's suspicions and anyone who follows either of us would set off the wards."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Don't you set off the wards?"

"Hardly, since I'm the one who helped Dumbledore set them. I did tell you last year this house was warded. Did you never wonder how I knew?"

She swallowed.

"I don't want you near my parents. Murderer."

_Was he laughing_?

"You've known for at least two years that I was a Death Eater. Did you think I'd never killed before now?"

"It isn't only Dumbledore. You sold out Harry's parents." She thought he stiffened.

"Sold out the Potters? A likely story. Why would you think I was ever in their confidence?"

"You were the one who overheard the prophecy and told Vol –"

"Don't say that name! Do you want him to hear?" he spat, looming menacingly nearer. The damp grass squelched underfoot.

"Dumbledore told Harry not to be afraid of saying it," she told him, lifting her chin.

"Dumbledore didn't have a Dark Mark."

She wrinkled her forehead. Was the Dark Mark a stronger connection than a curse scar? Harry could actually feel Voldemort's emotions. Surely if it was safe for him to say Voldemort, it was safe for Snape too.

"Harry's marked."

His right hand rubbed once at his left arm before he stopped himself and glared her down.

"Potter is marked as his conqueror. I'm marked as his slave," he said.

She chewed on her lip. That might make sense. On the other hand, maybe he was just distracting her from her accusation, as he'd done so many times during her training.

"You heard the prophecy –"

"Half of it."

" – and then you passed it on to him! Liar! You told me you couldn't fight for a side that kills babies and you offered him Harry!"

Her wand was in her hand, pointing into his face. He didn't flinch.

"The first part of the prophecy says nothing about a baby," he said quietly.

"'Born as the seventh month dies …'" she scoffed. Then she paused. "Oh. 'Born', not 'will be born'. I suppose not." She searched his face for any sign of sorrow or remorse. In the dim light, there was none. "Is that why Dumbledore said it was the greatest regret of your life? Because it was a baby? I know you hated Harry's dad, I heard you say so in the Shrieking Shack! You couldn't have been sorry it was him."

"The less you know of my actions or my reasons for acting the better. There is no need for you to know and that is enough reason not to tell you," he said calmly.

"You expect me to trust you when you won't tell me anything!"

He looked past the wand and into her eyes. His own were shadowed.

"You know already more of my reasons than I've ever told any other but one."

"You can't think how flattered I am," she said sarcastically. "And will you kill me too when you're done with me?"

He pushed his face into hers with the speed of a striking snake.

"I will do whatever is necessary to keep Potter alive to do his work," he told her through clenched teeth. "If it is ever a question of your death or his, it will be yours." Her eyes dropped from his and he continued in an edged voice, "I believe in such a circumstance you would concur with my decision."

Her wand hand fell, trembling. She shoved it into her pocket.

"You have an answer for everything," she complained.

"But the only answer that matters is yours. You know now what I'm capable of. Do you trust me still? Do we still work together?"

She pulled a leaf off the lone rose bush and started ripping at it. A shower of fragments fell. She took another.

"I – I think so."

He had straightened up to watch her, with a wry twitch of the lips, knowing he must force her to the choice.

"Then tell me what is the task Dumbledore left him."

The leaf floated gently to the ground. She didn't notice.

"I – No! If he'd wanted you to know, he'd have told you himself!"

"As long as he was alive, I didn't need to know," he said inexorably as she gulped and gulped again. "Parts of the whole, yes, but not the full sum. He was the leader and all the strings were in his hand and he had strength and experience to know which ones to pull. But you, little know-it-all, are hardly in the same league. You need my counsel."

Still she recoiled.

"I can't tell you. I'm sworn to secrecy."

"And I'm sworn to the Dark Lord," he mocked. "So you don't trust me?"

She glared up at him, her hands clenched and her mouth tight.

"I can't tell you," she said again.

In the dull dark, she couldn't decipher his expression. Perhaps his lips thinned. Perhaps his eyes flashed. He stepped back.

"Then you don't trust me enough for me to trust you. As you wish. A Patronus will reach me, if ever you are in desperate need. Don't waste my time on anything less."

"I – Wait! You'd – You'd just go? Just like that?"

His lips curled into a familiar sneer.

"Little girl, I've been doing this since you slept in your cradle and I haven't lasted this long by taking foolish risks. If I'm to keep my place at the Dark Lord's side, my actions must be calculated to confirm his trust, not yours. The doubt you feel now will only grow, until one day you'll bring Aurors with you to one of these meetings – as you should have done tonight, if you do think me a traitor. Go! Help Potter to the best of your meagre abilities. I've other fish to fry."

He drew his cloak around him and turned to Apparate. She took two hasty steps forward and grabbed his arm. It was as rigid as a steel rod. Their eyes met and she let go, her hands trembling, but she didn't step away.

"Wait! Please! Do you know anyone with the initials R.A.B.? We think he might have been a Death Eater, but we can't be sure when."

He didn't step away either. His face was as rigid as his arm.

"Regulus. Did Black never tell you he had a brother? But he's been dead sixteen years."

Her hand came up to cover her gaping mouth.

"Regulus Black?" Why had that never occurred to them? "Are you sure? What did the A stand for?"

"I don't recall, Ambrose or Alphard or some such name, but I am sure of the initial. His mother had all his possessions monogrammed. It was a standing joke in Slytherin that his brother's middle name doubtless began with O." He smirked, murmuring, "One could only applaud such parental foresight."

"Then maybe there's one in Grimmauld Place!" Hermione said.

"Guard your tongue," he said sharply. "You shouldn't be gifting those you mistrust with sensitive information. I believe there's still a spy in the Order. Have you any other silly questions before I go?"

"Professor – Oh, this is ridiculous. I don't even know what to call you any more," she said.

"It hardly matters, since I won't be there to hear it."

"Please," she begged. "Don't go yet! Give me time to think."

He glared down his nose at her.

"You've had weeks. Any further delay is mere procrastination. Make your choice."

He was already turning. She took a long, unsteady breath, her blood thumping in her ears.

"Horcruxes," she whispered despairingly.

He stopped. His cloak billowed suddenly free as he whirled on her.

"But the ring and the diary were destroyed and Dumbledore expected to secure the locket that night!" he said. "How many more were there?"

So he knew some of it already. He'd just been testing her. She went on more confidently.

"We think there were seven altogether, six plus him. But R.A.B got to the locket first. There was one in the cave with the Inferi, but when Harry looked at it after – after you left, it was the wrong one and there was a note from R.A.B, saying 'I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.'"

He nodded. Her word-for-word memorisation was useful for once, but there was no chance he'd tell her so.

"So we don't know whether he succeeded or not. Pity. But if it did end up in Grimmauld Place, the elf would probably know." His lips pursed. "You should go through the library. Regulus must have learned about Horcruxes from somewhere. Don't tell the Order what you're looking for though. I suppose Weasley's still basing them there?"

Her eyes and mouth were round.

"Yes, how did you know? That he was the new Head, I mean."

"You weren't Dumbledore's only contingency plan. Of course he appointed a successor. Why would you think otherwise?" He gave her a knowing, sweeping glance. "Anxious, were you? He'll do well enough. Didn't you ever notice that he quietly does exactly what he wants to do while his wife storms ineffectually around him?"

She sagged with relief and he scowled at her.

"What is the use of closing your mind with Occlumency when your body language is so open? It's a pity I didn't include acting in the subjects I taught you."

She bit her lip.

"I can act when I need to. I fooled Umbridge."

"A great feat, indeed," he sneered. "What do you know of the other Horcruxes?"

Hermione welcomed the change of subject.

"We're pretty sure one is Hufflepuff's cup and we don't know for sure, but Dumbledore suggested Nagini might be another."

"Nagini? Why did he suppose her a Horcrux? Did he say?"

"Well, we're pretty sure Vol – You-Know-Who was at least one Horcrux short when he came back, because he meant to make one from the Potters and he got disembodied instead. And she was there the next time he killed someone – the gardener at his grandparents' house – so that's motive and opportunity. We're fairly sure he wanted to use founders' artefacts and a snake is Slytherin, of course. But I suppose the main reason is that he can possess her, like he did when she bit Mr Weasley."

Snape considered this, one long finger tracing around his mouth.

"Perhaps," he said at last. "The first arguments make sense, at any rate, but the last seems neither here nor there. He's never needed a Horcrux to possess his hosts. In his bodiless state, he possessed Quirrell, at least, and many smaller creatures before that, I believe. And after his return, I'm told he possessed Potter several times and you're surely not suggesting that he's a Horcrux?"

Hermione's breath caught. Unconsciously, she put her hand on his sleeve.

"Could he be?"

The silence before his answer was terrible.

"It seems unlikely. It might have appealed to the Dark Lord's sense of irony to turn his supposed nemesis into his Horcrux, but I'm quite sure he meant to kill him that night and his first act upon his return was to attempt it again. I believe we can discount that possibility for the moment."

"For the moment?" she quavered, her hand tightening on his arm. He firmly removed it and moved away, scowling at her.

"Nothing can be discounted entirely at this stage, but it seems considerably less likely than the other. For my part, I doubt he'd have chosen to store his deathlessness in a creature capable of dying, in which case neither would be right."

She forced a smile.

"I suppose you'd look for one that didn't die, like a phoenix – Oh! Fawkes? We know Vol – he came back to Hogwarts to ask Dumbledore for the Defense position."

He gave her a blighting glance.

"Don't be ridiculous. A phoenix is far too powerful to be used in such a way; it would naturally repel any attempt to imbue it with Dark magic."

"But You-Know-Who has one of Fawkes's feathers in his wand and he's able to use that for evil!"

"Once separated from its origin, yes. A feather is not sentient and can be used by anyone who holds it." He paused, his head tilted as if listening to the trees. "That may offer another possibility," he said slowly. "The wand fills the same conditions as the snake. It was there when he killed Bryce; it represents a founder – indeed, a phoenix feather is probably as close to a Gryffindor artefact as he could obtain, for the Gryffindor colours of red and gold were derived from one that was reputedly Godric's familiar – and, of course, he keeps it very close."

"That isn't much help," Hermione said gloomily. "Instead of narrowing the possibilities down, you're expanding them."

"That's as it should be," he said curtly. "It's better to destroy twice the number we need than to miss one. While you're researching, try if you can learn how to identify a Horcux, and you'd better acquire a Dark Detector before one of you winds up cursed. You may not be as lucky as Miss Bell." He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "I must go. Stay out of Diagon for the next few days. It won't be safe."

She gasped.

"Who do I tell?"

"No one. That's taken care of. Just persuade your foolish friends to stay home."

She chewed on her lower lip.

"Ron's got his Apparition test on Tuesday. Should he not go?"

"I hardly think it will be a problem. It will be no more a waste of time than anything else he's likely to do that day."

She was still glaring after he Apparated away.

**A/N Unashamedly AU to Deadly Hallows, I'm sure, as my mind works at a tangent to JK's. I make no attempt to second-guess or reproduce what she may have in store for us. (And I don't like Horcruxes, so don't expect them to be the main point of this fic.)**

**Whitehound was the one who noticed that the first part of the prophecy doesn't specify a baby as the "vanquisher". I think John Gardner may be the one who first suggested the wand as a Horcrux, though the phoenix explanation is my own and a phoenix familiar for Godric is not canon.**

**Aspidistra are very hardy plants, but they wouldn't survive outside in the cold of an English winter. Some people do move the pots out in summer, however.**

**Canon Dark Detectors are Foe-Glasses, Secrecy Sensors and Sneakoscopes. Although they didn't use any while clearing out Grimmauld Place, I presume there may be other kinds, eg something that detects whether an item is cursed.**


	3. Nasty Creatures

NASTY CREATURES

**Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Warning: HBP-spoilers. ****Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

**Sorry for the long delay. The story till now:  
Immediately following HBP, Snape and Voldemort plot how to turn Draco into a double-agent replacement for Snape. With Voldemort as Bonder, Draco makes a reciprocal Unbreakable Vow to protect Snape and aid him in serving his "true master". Snape subsequently makes contact with Hermione and asks whether she trusts him enough to continue with her assigned task to be his link to an unaware Harry. After some doubt, she consents and they discuss, among other things, Horcruxes.**

"Didn't Sirius tell us his brother was a Death Eater?" Hermione asked next morning at breakfast, which they ate in the interval between Mr Dursley going to work and Dudley getting up, while Mrs Dursley dusted the mantelpiece and turned out the living room. It was their one cooked meal of the day as Mrs Dursley wouldn't let them in her kitchen after that. Lunch and dinner would be sandwiches again.

Harry looked up from his bowl of cereal.

"Yeah, I think so. He said he didn't get very far in and when he tried to get out he got killed. Why?"

"Maybe he got in further than Sirius knew. His name was Regulus wasn't it? And if his middle name began with A –"

Both boys stared at her.

"You know, that just might be right. You're brilliant!" said Ron, pointing his fork at her. A splodge of scrambled egg fell off the end of it, leaving a smear of bacon grease on the table. He ate what was left and forked another helping.

She blushed. If they knew where that idea came from!

"So you think we should go along to headquarters and check it out?" Harry said, swallowing his mouthful and dipping his spoon for another. "I suppose it would be on the tapestry, wouldn't it?"

Hermione cut a small strip of bacon into tiny pieces.

"I expect so, but we can find out quicker than that. Kreacher must know what it was. And if it was Regulus that took it, he might even know where he put it," she said.

"Thought you didn't like me bossing house-elves around," Harry objected.

"I still don't, but it would be silly not to ask. If anyone knows what was in Sirius's house before we started cleaning it, it would be him."

"Probably something we threw out," Ron said gloomily, chewing, swallowing, then shovelling in another mouthful and chewing again. Hermione averted her eyes. "Or that Dung stole. It was gold, that Horc – You-Know-What, wasn't it?"

"Something we threw out?" Harry mused. His eyes widened and he put down his spoon. "Or something we didn't! Remember those glass-fronted cabinets with all the bits and bobs? There was a locket, wasn't there? We tried to open it and couldn't. I don't think that went into the sack with the junk."

"Course it did," Ron said, his fork pausing on the way to his mouth. "Sirius chucked a silver snuffbox and a gold ring. Why would he keep a locket no one could open?"

They stared at each other in sickened disappointment.

"Don't say we had one in our hands and threw it away!" Hermione implored. "Life couldn't be that cruel!"

It wasn't till Harry winced and Ron scowled at her that she realised what she'd said.

_Oh, couldn't it? And Harry hadn't been orphaned by a nutter and brought up by magic-hating Muggles in this very house, had he? He hadn't watched first Cedric, then Sirius, then Dumbledore die in front of him in the last three years._

Kreacher, answering Harry's summons a moment late, turned out to know more than they'd expected. Not only did he confirm that R.A.B. had been Regulus all right, he himself had helped retrieve the Horcrux by drinking the liquid that protected it.

Ron said what they were all thinking.

"Well, that explains a lot."

"But where is it now?" Harry insisted and the house-elf had no choice but to tell him. He'd rescued it from the rubbish sack, along with as many family heirlooms as he could fit under the sink where he kept his treasures, and it was still there.

"I suppose it's safer here than there, now that he knows we want it," Hermione mused, after the elf had been dispatched, with instructions as airtight as Harry could make them, to fetch everything in his hoard immediately and to tell no one ever. She began to stack the plates. "But we still don't know how to destroy it. I wonder if headquarters has any books on Horcruxes."

Presumably Regulus had found out about them somewhere and it wouldn't have been at school, not if Dumbledore had banned the subject as soon as he became headmaster.

"Books!" Ron scoffed. "Harry didn't need books to destroy the diary. He just stabbed it with a Basilisk fang and bingo!"

"He almost died." She eyed the debris of their breakfast, three spilled flakes, a few smears of grease and a couple of spoonfuls of egg congealing in the pan, and wished she'd stuck to cereal, like Harry.

"Yes, but that was from the Basilisk, not the diary," Harry pointed out. "And it was coincidence that the Basilisk was anywhere near me."

"Well the diary was probably the first one he made," Hermione said. "It wouldn't have been as well protected as the ones that came after. Dumbledore almost died when he disabled the ring Horcrux –"

"Dumbledore wasn't the one in the prophecy; Harry is."

"– And he never recovered the use of his hand! Do you want to risk that for Harry?"

"You know, Ron just might be right," Harry said thoughtfully. "Maybe that's what 'power to vanquish' means. Otherwise it would be pretty strange of Dumbledore not to tell me how he did it and what to avoid."

"Don't be silly," Hermione breathed. "You could die, Harry, and we still have to find the other two and kill Nagini and Voldemort!"

"It's not silly!" Ron said. "We all handled the locket perfectly safely the day we first saw it. There's no reason to expect we can't again."

_Crack!_

Kreacher appeared with a nasty smirk and an armful of dirty sack.

_Plop! Tinkle, skitter …_

The sack opened, spilling out maggots and spiders and tarnished heirlooms over the immaculate floor, just as Harry's aunt came back into the kitchen. Ron recoiled and Mrs Dursley shrieked.

"Get that nasty creature out of my house immediately! How dare you! Disgusting little beast pouring filth all over my kitchen!"

Kreacher snickered.

"The nasty Mudblood filth deserves to live in a sty, she does," he muttered. "Home of filth and dirty blood."

"Sorry, Aunt Petunia. I'll take care of it." Harry said automatically and turned on the house-elf. "Kreacher! Clean up the dirt and the bugs this instant, without removing any of the objects I asked for!"

"I warned you not bring any of your freakish tricks here," Mrs Dursley shrilled. "You promised not to, if I let your friends stay!"

That had been just politeness on their part. She'd done her best to keep them away, but when Hermione had pointed out that if they weren't staying there, they'd visit every day and make a point of letting the neighbours see them acting strangely, she'd gritted her teeth, silenced her menfolk and hammered out a schedule that gave unwilling hosts and unwelcome guests the best chance of consistently avoiding each other.

Hermione had been glaring at Kreacher, but she'd promised herself the last time the Dursleys called Harry that name not to let it pass again.

"My parents are both dentists," she said with a steely smile, biting off each word. "I can assure you that the thing they would find most freakish in your house is that you brought Harry up in a cupboard."

"Too right," Ron agreed, gingerly skipping out of the way of a particularly large spider then crushing it under his shoe as it scuttled past. The sight of squashed spider on dust-speckled floor seemed to raise Mrs Dursley to even greater wrath.

"I knew you couldn't be trusted! Just like Lily and that awful boy who used to visit her!" The woman drew herself up and took a deep breath. There was a malicious glitter in her eye that told Hermione she'd been saving something up for an occasion like this. "The one whose face they keep showing us every night on the tele. The one that killed your precious headmaster."

The_ what? _Three mouths gaped open and three pairs of eyes were riveted. Kreacher snickered again.

"Good riddance to filthy blood-traitors," he muttered. "Serves him right for filling my poor mistress's house with Mudbloods and werewolves and traitors and thieves."

Aunt Petunia made a lunge for the frying pan, but Kreacher levitated it higher than her arm could reach. He'd been forbidden to cause harm to any of Harry's friends or family, but that didn't mean he couldn't annoy them.

"Get that – that _thing_ out of my house!" she said, snatching at the pan as it swooped past her and clattered on the floor behind her, splattering her legs with spots of greasy egg. Even Kreacher covered his ragged ears at her screech, but Harry barely flinched.

"Snape? Snape used to visit my mum?" Harry's eyes were blazing. "I don't believe you. He hated her. He's the one that betrayed her."

Hermione bit her lip. If he had, he wasn't the only one. And Pettigrew, they knew, had known whose deaths he was causing. Snape hadn't.

Mrs Dursley paused in her efforts to grab one of those ragged ears that kept winking out from in front of her and reappearing behind.

"That's all you know! Thick as thieves they were, always sneaking off together and having secrets, until she dropped him and took up with your lout of a father instead. So now you know what kind of friends your mother had!" She glared at them all and flounced out, with one parting shot flung over her shoulder. "And you'd better be out of my kitchen in five minutes and leave it clean as a whistle. Dudley's stirring and I want to start his breakfast."

Harry followed her out and they could hear him peppering her with agitated questions. Ron and Hermione exchanged glances.

"Right," Hermione said. "You take the sack up to the room. I'll clear the table and wash up. Kreacher, if you say another word, to us or anyone, or do anything but wait out of the way till Harry calls you again, I'll hex your teeth into glue and your hands into jelly."

Kreacher glowered and blew her a raspberry before disappearing. Ron gave the room a wary once-over and the sack an even warier one.

"You don't have to touch it," Hermione offered, levitating the bowls and cutlery to the sink and the crumbs to the bin. "Use _Wingardium Leviosa_."

"I know," he grumbled. "I'm just wondering if I want this anywhere near the place I sleep."

"You've had the twins near where you sleep most of your life," Hermione pointed out practically. "You're surely not more scared of Kreacher's pranks than theirs."

"They've never killed anyone," he said, then remembered the Peruvian Darkness Powder they'd sold Malfoy. "Leastways, not intentionally."

As soon as Hermione was alone in the kitchen, she fired off a Patronus, '_Got locket; now what?'_ The answer came as she set her foot on the first step. '_Study.'_

"Thanks, Professor," she muttered as the silver scorpion disappeared. "Big help you are! Like I'd need to be told! Study what?" _Couldn't he even have suggested what books? But maybe he didn't know._

By the time Harry joined them, she and Ron had sorted through the keepsakes. A pile of Scourgified objects lay on the sack on the floor and a heavy gold locket sat alone on the table, glinting malevolently. He barely glanced at it.

"I don't believe it," he said. "My mother would never have been friends with the greasy git. Never in a million years, even if he hadn't called her a Mudblood!"

Ron was happy to join him in abusing the slimy, greasy git and recalling all the nasty things Sirius had ever said about him and all the times they'd been sneered at. It wasn't till they reached the teeth incident that either of them noticed Hermione's silence.

"What," said Ron, "Not going to defend him this time?"

"I haven't defended him since he killed Dumbledore," Hermione said, not looking up from contemplation of the locket. It had a stylised letter S, which presumably stood for Salazar or Slytherin, although surprisingly it resembled a double-headed lily-stem more than the snake she'd have expected. "You know I haven't."

"But you still haven't said it, have you?" Ron waved a freckled finger at her. "Not straight out."

When Ron smiled like that, she couldn't be mad at him.

"All right, fine. You were right and I was wrong about him." Her hands were loosely fisted in her lap. She crossed her bent fingers where they couldn't see. "Same as Dumbledore."

"You know, Harry," Ron said. "If he was sneaky enough to trick Dumbledore, you can't be surprised he managed to trick your mum. He probably apologised and pretended to be all sorry and that."

"But why did she even listen to him? Why didn't she listen to my dad?"

"Maybe she didn't, at first," Hermione said absently. It wasn't as if the boys had any new insights to offer, even with this startling new information. "But if they were the two top Potions students, maybe they got together because of that."

It had never occurred to her before, but if the professor and Harry's mum had been friends, that might be why Snape had been so nasty to Harry their first lesson, because he'd expected Harry to be a Potions-whizz like her, and he wasn't. She knew better than to suggest it to the boys though and Snape would never tell her. _There is no need for you to know and that is enough reason not to tell you._

"But she must have known he was into the Dark Arts!" Harry complained. "Sirius said –"

And they were off again.

It was when Harry capped Ron's story of detention cleaning bedpans for Pomfrey with the time Snape caught him with the Marauder's Map in third year – "What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter?" – that the owls came, three of them, dropped three official-looking letters on their heads and zoomed off again.

"They're from the Ministry," said Harry, recognising them first. "You got permission to use magic, though, it shouldn't be that."

"Maybe they're about Hogwarts," said Hermione hopefully, as she picked them up and distributed them. They were addressed individually, one for each. "You know, letting us know whether it's opening again next year."

"Oh, it's about Hogwarts all right," Harry said, looking up, his green eyes huge in his pale face. "They want us to testify at the investigation into Dumbledore's death."

"Blimey, Harry," Ron said. "Do you think they'll try to pin it on you?"

"Sure to. That or blackmail me into being their poster boy."

_It probably depends whether it's Umbridge or Scrimgeour at the trial,_ Hermione thought glumly_. Why didn't they arrest that horrid toad of a woman last year instead of taking her back after her rest-cure?_

"Well, I don't think we have any choice then," she said. "I know you were worried there might be another spy in the Order, but we can't not talk to them about this."

"She's right, Harry."

Harry crumpled up the parchment and stood up, his face set.

"Tomorrow," he said flatly. "We'll go in the morning when Ron goes for his test and he can join us after. Or you two can go today if you like, just don't leave _that_ –" (his eyes fell on the locket) "out where someone can take it. I'm going for a walk. I need to think."

"You can't go alone, Harry."

"Don't, Hermione," Harry said from the doorway. "Just don't. I know you only want to help, but – Just don't."

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

No one was very hungry the next morning. Harry had stayed out till dinnertime, returning tired and monosyllabic just as Ron chopped the last hunk of cheese into three roughly equal slices. His friends had moped around the house all day, afraid to leave in case they weren't there when he came back, they'd told each other. They hadn't wanted to admit they wanted to be there in case he didn't come back, or came only to leave.

"He'll be in a better mood tomorrow," Ron had said, as Hermione had leaned against his shoulder. "You'll see." He'd rested his head on hers and they'd been silent together.

_At last! This is what I've wanted for years now_, she'd thought. _Oh, Ron! Why did you have to wait to get a clue till a day I need so desperately to get away and talk to the Professor?_

She'd settled against his arm and sighed, deciding to make the best of it since it was obvious that she wouldn't be able to get away longer than to use the bathroom and that wasn't long enough to get to talk to Snape face to face.

_Tomorrow, _she'd thought. _I'll talk to him tomorrow._

And now it was tomorrow. Harry's face was as bleak as ever, but his bearing radiated decision. He would consult the Order about the trial, Hermione would consult the Grimmauld library about Horcruxes – she'd better mind the locket, just in case its appearance turned out to be relevant – and Ron would join them after his test.

"Good luck and don't forget your eyebrows this time!"

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Absorbed in contemplation of his Apparition license, Ron almost missed the flash of blond hair under a grey hood as he walked through the Ministry foyer. Almost. He turned back and grabbed a scrawny arm just below the shoulder, his other hand slipping into his pocket for his wand. The hood shifted over a pale, pointed face as the fourteen inch length of willow shoved under it.

"Ferret?" He couldn't believe it. What was Draco Flipping Malfoy doing at the Ministry? It must be some sort of trick.

He dug the wand a bit harder. Malfoy winced. The crowd surged and jostled obliviously around them, leaving a little bubble of space for them to stand.

"Weasel! Just my luck!" the blond said, his shoulders briefly slumping. He lifted his empty hands away from his body and spread them apart in the classic gesture of capitulation.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" Ron growled, his fingers digging into bone and twisting. He darted a glance around for an accomplice, but there was no sign of Snape anywhere.

His captive gave a little grunt of pain before he could stop himself, then jerked up his chin and stared straight back, flicking a dismissive finger at his Ministry entrance badge, which read _Draco Malfoy, Surrender Mission_.

"Was your mum – ow! – too busy taking in washing to teach you to read?"

Ron's mouth twisted in disgust.

He glanced around the room again. Still no Snape and no one who looked like they might be planning a rescue, but there were too many people around them to risk casting a spell. If someone bumped his wand arm, it might slip and hex a bystander and Malfoy might make his escape in the confusion. Then again, it was probably less risky than trying to drag him to the Security Desk without hexing him.

"You must think I'm an idiot," he accused.

Pale lips curled in a face even whiter than usual. A pulse was beating in Malfoy's neck. Ron could feel the vibration spread up his wand arm.

"If you didn't notice that till now, then you must be," Malfoy said through gritted teeth. "Now, if you'd kindly let go, I can hand in my wand at the desk and wait for a dozen Aurors to turn up."

Ron snorted. Y_eah, right! And Snape keeps a Puffskein in his pocket so he'll never run out of things to cuddle!_

"Or I could hex you where you stand and turn you in myself," he threatened.

"Need the money for your next meal, do you? I suppose I can do the charitable thing and let you. Wouldn't want a classmate to starve."

There was a rustle and a parting of the crowd to one side. Ron's arm tightened its grip, even as he jumped and swung his head around to see.

"Here!" said the security guard sharply, pushing his way through. "What are you two playing at? No duels in the Ministry!"

Ron fell back slightly, but without letting go or shifting his wand. Malfoy lifted his free hand and pushed the hood off his face.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he said in a clear, carrying voice. All around, people shrieked and moved hastily away. "I'm here to give myself up. If you'd be so kind as to arrest me, Weasel here could push off. I certainly wouldn't miss him. And hurry, please. You'll want to send the Aurors to Diagon Alley before the Death Eaters get there."

**A/N Ron's current wand is 14 inch willow in canon.**


	4. Connected By Blood

CONNECTED BY BLOOD

**Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Warning: HBP-spoilers. Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

Hermione had spent the long slow day of waiting for Harry in deep thought – and not just about how cute Ron was and how desperately she needed to consult Professor Snape – so as soon as they'd waved Ron off for his Apparition test, she asked Harry to summon Kreacher and inquire further into Regulus's death. Why waste days at Grimmauld Place going through the books Sirius hadn't bothered to throw away, when his brother had probably picked out the relevant ones seventeen years ago?

Sure enough, Kreacher confirmed her suspicions. Sirius had been wrong. Regulus hadn't been killed for attempted desertion; he'd died in his attempt to disarm the locket, a piece of information that abruptly ended yesterday's argument in Hermione's favour.

"Say it, Harry. You made me say it yesterday," Hermione challenged, her eyes gleaming triumphantly.

"No, that was Ron," Harry argued, trying to outstare her and failing. "Oh all right, fine, you were right and we were wrong. Half right, anyway. The locket's more dangerous than it looks and we won't try to destroy it till we know more about it. Satisfied?" He turned on the elf, who was still loudly muttering about filthy little Mudbloods, as bold as brass, telling their betters what to do. "And you, shut up!"

"Harry!"

"Don't say it, Hermione. I don't have to be polite if he doesn't." This time she looked away first. "Listen, you!" he told the surly elf. "We're going to Headquarters now. If there's no one else in the book-room when Hermione goes there, then immediately bring her any and all books, parchments, scrolls and other written or diagrammatic material belonging to, read by, borrowed or otherwise in Regulus Black's use or possession in the last year before he died. If not the book-room, then whatever room she tells you. Got that?"

"Kreacher is doing whatever Master says. Nasty unnatural boy, how the poor mistress would have cried to see him letting Mudbloods in the house to dirty it with their filthy habits."

"That was clever," Harry told her, after Kreacher winked out.

"Not really," she said. "Apart from Voldemort, or maybe Lucius Malfoy, who'd be more likely to know about Horcruxes than the first person to find one? I just hope I can discover whatever it is he missed."

She did. By the time Ron joined them at Headquarters, babbling about ruddy Malfoy and Aurors and an apparent planned Death Eater attack in Diagon Alley, she'd found the scroll she needed and, by the time they returned to the Dursleys, she knew why Regulus had died and why Harry probably wouldn't. Probably. The Horcrux itself wouldn't kill someone connected by blood to its creator, but there might be other protections surrounding it that would. If so, she'd bet at least one of them was in Parselmouth.

A s soon as they were back in Privet Drive, she messaged Snape, escaping from the boys with the simple excuse of a bathroom break. She hadn't wanted to do it from Headquarters, not after both he and Harry had separately suggested that there might still be a spy, but it just didn't seem right to be communicating from such a private space, even standing as far from the facilities as possible. She hoped uneasily that he couldn't sense her embarrassment in her Patronus, '_Same place, 10pm,'_ the way she always sensed his personality in his.

While Harry and Ron were rehashing for the fifty-seventh time what nefarious plan might be prompting their erstwhile classmate to give himself up to a probable life-sentence in Azkaban, she was pondering what to say when she saw the professor.

_Surely he knows all about it, _she thought, _if only I can persuade him to tell me. Otherwise why would he warn me about staying out of Diagon Alley for a few days or say that telling the right people was already taken care of? But why do it through Malfoy? It doesn't make sense that he'd sacrifice someone he was willing to die for, just to stop one attack._

"What do you say, Hermione?" Ron appealed to her. "I think it makes a lot of sense!"

"Oh, come on!" Harry retorted. "An inside plant to help his dad break out of Azkaban? Malfoy? Are you loony? What on earth do you think he could do that his dad couldn't?"

Hermione's brow furrowed.

"It's as likely as any other suggestion you've come up with." _Which is to say, not likely at all. _"He's going in voluntarily, not unprepared like Mr Malfoy. But I don't see how he could get anything past the guards without getting caught." She shrugged. "We'll probably find out more at the Ministry investigation, now that they have a new star witness. That's probably good for you, Harry." _For all of us._

"If he's not trying to put all the blame on you," Ron said gloomily. "You were there when Dumbledore died and no one else on our side was."

"Yes, but no one's going to believe a Death Eater's son over Harry, not now he's been convicted. Besides, there are three of you to testify that he was the one who let the Death Eaters in."

"Fat lot of the good that will do if Umbridge is there. I almost had my wand snapped two years ago!" Harry snorted. "Or even if she isn't. Did Sirius get justice? Did Stan?" Poor Stan Shunpike was still in Azkaban. "Or that nine-year-old who got Imperiused?"

"Yeah, between Umbridge and Malfoy's money, I wonder if we wouldn't be safer to make a run for it," Ron said.

Hermione bit her lip. Another question to ask Snape, but surely they were panicking for nothing.

"It's three to one who saw him help them and even more who saw him run. If he'd been innocent, he'd've stayed," she pointed out. "What did Remus say?" It was a pity Ron's dad hadn't been there to consult. They should have remembered it was a workday.

"Said I should concentrate on deciding what to say about where Dumbledore and I went that night and what we did. He offered to help me come up with a story, but that would mean telling him at least part of the truth and I promised Dumbledore I wouldn't tell anyone but you two."

"I'm sure you could trust Remus," Ron said. "He wouldn't ever betray you."

Hermione bit her lip, remembering what Snape had said on that subject. And she couldn't refute him. If it wasn't necessarily deliberate betrayal to pretend you didn't know how someone you thought was a murderer was getting near his next victim, it was, at the least, untrustworthy weakness. But as long as Harry continued to follow Dumbledore's advice there was no need to argue the point.

"Dumbledore said just us and you know how trusting he was." His mouth firmed. "I'm certainly not going to be more trusting than him." Hermione could read his thought in his eyes. Trust had gotten Dumbledore killed. It was a luxury they couldn't afford.

"The best lie is one's that's partly true," she offered. "So, what part of the truth is safe for you to reveal?"

"You could say he'd heard of a nest of Inferi and was going to look for them," Ron said. "And that he took you to help train you."

"No good. They'll bring up the Chosen One rubbish again and I'm not risking being quizzed about the Prophecy."

"Good point," Ron said. "Er, you could say Dumbledore took you because he liked you. That would be true enough."

"Except they'd probably say nasty things about him then. Say he was biased and losing his marbles."

"It never bothered him what they said, though."

"No, you were right the first time, Ron," Hermione said. "If they bring up the Chosen One business, all Harry has to say is that he doesn't know about that, but Voldemort's come after him before, so Dumbledore figured it was odds-on he'd come after him again."

They thought about it.

"That could work," Harry said. "But not the nest of Inferi because it might make Voldemort think of the cave, and the last thing we want is for him to take it into his head to check if his Horcrux is still there."

"What, then?"

They dickered about it for hours, till Ron suddenly changed the subject, saying, "What about this Horcrux then, Hermione? Did you find a way to destroy it?"

"Maybe. I think so. We were both right yesterday, Ron. It's dangerous, that's for sure. It killed Regulus when he tried to destroy it, the blast backfired onto him, so we have to be careful, but the Horcrux part might be safe for Harry. Only we need to be sure that there aren't any other protections on it and, if we can't ask Bill or Mad-Eye, we need to buy some really good Dark Detectors."

"Do we have to show them? Couldn't we just ask for a loan of Mad-Eye's eyeball?"

"Ew, Ron." If she'd been closer, she'd have swatted his arm. "It wouldn't do any good anyway. He'd still want to know why. So it's either tell one of them a plausible story that doesn't even hint at Horcruxes or go shopping. Preferably tomorrow."

"Up to you, Harry," Ron said. "What do you say?"

Harry thought.

"I'd say go shopping, but with the Aurors all over Diagon Alley like they will be, I don't think that's safe either. If it's a question of talking to an Auror we don't know or talking to Bill, I say Bill. But we won't tell him the truth. Just that we caught Kreacher stealing it and we wanted to check if it was dangerous." He grinned. "Tell you what. We'll say Ron wants to give it to you as a present, Hermione, now you're his girlfriend. Don't try to deny it, because I saw you yesterday and all I can say is it's about time."

Hermione looked at Ron and they both blushed scarlet.

A few hours later, she was blushing even brighter as she explained their plans to Snape, but he made no comment, which was much better than she'd dared hope. A curl of the lip or an upward twitch of the nose was easy enough to pretend to ignore.

"Did you call me here for a progress report?" he said at the end. "As gratifying as we all must find it that the Chosen One is finally demonstrating the beginnings of a functioning mind, it's hardly worth risking our lives for. I told you to call me only in desperate need."

"Or when I needed your counsel," she said stubbornly. "You said I wasn't in Professor Dumbledore's league and I'd need your counsel."

He glared down his large nose at her and she glared back, her fists clenched in her pockets where he couldn't see.

"Ask your question," he said.

"You know how Draco Malfoy gave himself up today?" she started.

"Successfully. If that's all?" He turned to leave.

"Wait, wait, wait! Give me a chance to ask, okay? I'm not as practised as you at this! We'd all already been summoned to appear at the Ministry investigation into that night – you know –"

"And?"

"Do you know what his plans are? What he's likely to tell them?"

"He has no plans. He's a tool in surer hands."

"Vol, er, the Dark Lord's?" It was hard remembering to say Voldemort all day and the Dark Lord at night. "Or yours? You warned me about the raid in Diagon Alley and you said telling the Ministry was all taken care of, but I never thought it would be Draco Malfoy telling them!"

"Your point?"

It was clear he had no intention of explaining. She tried again.

"Do you know what he's planning to tell the Wizengamot at the investigation? He's not going to try to throw the blame on Harry, is he? Because even though we have witnesses, we're not sure we can trust them, they've made wrong decisions about Malfoys before, and we don't have time to waste if he tries to get free by blaming Harry, because –" She wound down, abashed and breathless. "I mean, is it safe for us to stay and face the questions or should we be making plans to go on the run?"

"Perhaps. No. Yes. No. Do try not to needlessly antagonise the Ministry. It may not be a good friend, but it's certainly capable of being a bad enemy and you three have enemies enough. Any other silly questions?"

"Well, um, er, yes. The Horcruxes; where do we start looking for the next one?"

"None of you have any idea?"

"How should we know if Dumbledore didn't?"

"He may not have known, but he certainly had ideas and I understood he'd conveyed them to the leader of your little gang over the last year. What did he show Potter in his Pensieve?"

She rubbed her forefinger over her chin and pushed her mouth to one side.

"V – the Dark Lord's past."

He scowled blacker than ever through his curtains of greasy hair.

"Exactly. Look for clues in his past; places he's lived, people he's associated with – or those he's wronged personally. You know some of them already. Hagrid, for instance, or that wailing ghost-girl he went to school with. Any more silly questions?"

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Under the gaze of a full Wizengamot for the second time in his life, Harry squirmed in the chair, knocking its loose chains to the floor, and jumped at the sudden clatter.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that, Minister?" he said.

"Where did Professor Dumbledore take you on the night in question?"

"I don't know the name of the place or where it was. We went to an empty stretch of beach."

"You went to the _beach_?"

There were scattered titters. Harry tried to ignore them and look only at Scrimgeour.

"Yes. He um, wanted to give me a practical demonstration of the um, defensive magic that he'd been teaching me the theory of all year."

"A practical demonstration? In the middle of the night?" Scrimgeour thundered.

"It wasn't the middle. It was quite soon after curfew, actually."

That was the point at which the Chair recognised Umbridge and allowed her to take over.

"Why would Professor Dumbledore have chosen you out of an entire school for special lessons? Teacher's pet, eh? Or is there any truth to these rumours that have been appearing in _The Prophet_?" she insinuated.

Harry stuck to his script regardless. Hermione had made him practise answers to every question they could think of, every waking moment of the last week, except for the brief interlude when he and Ron had shown Bill the locket. After a thorough examination, he'd declared it clean and, as soon as they'd escaped his teasing about "Ronnie's girl, pretty little kid and clever too", they'd returned to Hermione and Harry had followed her instructions: the "Open" command in Parseltongue, then an _Incendio_ to burn the portrait of a youngish Riddle he found inside, and that was that. The Dursleys were still complaining about the purple smoke.

"I wouldn't know about any of that. He said that since Voldemort –" (There was a rumble of horror around the room. He repeated himself for good measure.) "Since Voldemort had come after me more than once, he wouldn't give two Knuts for my chances of it not happening again and I'd better be prepared. So he was preparing me."

"I see. Now, your co-conspirators –"

"My what?" Harry asked.

"Your co-conspirators have testified that, before leaving with Dumbledore that night, you returned to them briefly and asked them to keep an eye on certain people."

"Oh, you mean my friends. Some of the students who'd joined Dumbledore's Army the previous year," he said, deliberately reminding the Wizengamot whose death this was about.

"Members of an illegal group, in other words?" she asked, in a voice like sugared arsenic.

"No, not illegal. We formed under the auspices of Professor Dumbledore and he took full responsibility for our group. You must remember, Madam Umbridge. You were there." Dumbledore had saved them then and it looked like he was still saving them. Harry swallowed down a heavy lump in his throat.

"You admit that you told your friends to expect trouble?" she probed.

"I told them I believed Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy might make an attempt to do something. I didn't know what, but I expected them to make a move that night."

"You told your co-conspirators only? Why did you not notify the staff?"

"I did. I told Professor Dumbledore that Malfoy had been heard rejoicing and that I was sure he was planning something for that night."

Her toadface creased into a broad smirk.

"Ah, of course, you told Professor Dumbledore. Such a pity he can't be here to corroborate your story, isn't it?"

Harry nearly choked on the words he wanted to scream.

"And you expect us to believe that, despite your warning, he left the school with you that night? Would that not have been so foolish as to be incredible?"

"I don't see your problem. You've been accusing him of being incredibly foolish for years!" Harry snapped.

"Restrain yourself or we will have to restrain you, Mr Potter. This is a court of law, not a circus."

_Could have fooled me, _thought Harry rebelliously, but he forced his voice to calm.

"He told me that it was under control and that the school was not being left unguarded. And that second bit at least was true. He had extra guards stationed all over. But no one expected Malfoy to be able to bring Death Eaters into the school."

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

The chair was hard and chill. Every time Draco moved, the chains pulled a little tighter. He gulped and listened to the charges being read out against him.

"... that you did feloniously and with malicious intent, convey criminals into the school for the purpose of a most bloody and shocking murder… that you connived with a notorious Death Eater to overthrow the properly-constituted authority of your school and to murder …"

When they finished, he didn't wait for the silence to end.

"He wasn't a notorious Death Eater, sir. He was a teacher at the school."

"But you knew him to be a Death Eater, didn't you?" Scrimgeour said.

Draco sat up straighter, licking his lips.

"It seemed a pretty obvious assumption when he placed me under Imperius on the last day of fifth year, if you want to call that knowing. But since I was under Imperius for most of the last year, I couldn't do anything about it, could I?"

Every plum-clad figure turned simultaneously to its nearest neighbour in what seemed like a whispering competition. Draco chewed on the inside of his cheek, where they couldn't see.

"You claim the Imperius defence, do you? Your family has used that before, have they not?"

"You would know better than me, sir, I was a baby at the time. But I believe my father pleaded it after the first war. And I have no reason to believe that it was false."

Scrimgeour leaned forward and shook his leonine head.

"Indeed? And yet your father is in Azkaban at this very moment for a daring and egregious raid on this very building a mere thirteen months ago. What have you to say to that?"

Draco would have spread his hands, if they hadn't been chained too tightly to move.

"Whatever he did last year doesn't prove he was guilty fifteen years ago, sir. If he was put under Imperius in the first war, he could just as easily have been put under again. The Lestranges escaped over a year ago and Sirius Black two and a half years before that. Any of them could have hexed him for all I know or it could have been Snape, like it was with me. I was at school most of that year; how would I know?"

"And so you are following in the family footsteps, are you not? Father a Death Eater, Imperius defence, aunt a death Eater, uncle a Death Eater…"

"I'm not on trial for my family's mistakes, am I, sir? Or am I? Have I been convicted in absentia for the crimes of my relatives and my teacher?"

"Do you claim the Imperius curse was also used against your co-conspirators, Vincent Thaddeus Crabbe and Gregory William Goyle?"

Draco paused, wishing he could wipe his brow. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes.

"No. But they weren't co-conspirators either. They didn't know they were involved in anything shady. They did it because they're my friends and they trusted me. I never told them what I was up to, only that it was a way to clear our names after the mess we got into last year trying to support the Ministry by joining Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, and they trusted my word. How were they supposed to know I was under an Imperius to kill the headmaster?" he pleaded.

"You claim that they stood guard for you all year without knowing what you were up to? That sounds rather far-fetched."

"Ask Potter. He knows. He followed me around all year and I know he heard us arguing at least once. He can tell you they didn't know. Ask him."

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

"Listen to this! _'An emotional scene erupted in the courtroom yesterday as the accused, Draco Malfoy, broke down in tears when his accomplices, Vincent Thaddeus Crabbe and Gregory William Goyle, were each sentenced to two months of Azkaban for having feloniously assisted in a crime through use of a restricted potion, in this case Polyjuice. Malfoy himself was acquitted –_' " Ron crumpled the newspaper in his hand and thre it on the table. "Acquitted! They believed that git was under Imperius! How could they? After his dad and everything!"

"Keep reading," Hermione advised. She'd read the newspaper first while he'd been shovelling sausages into his mouth. "He wasn't acquitted of everything, only the big charges of letting the Death Eaters in and bringing about Dumbledore's death."

"You said it yourself," Harry said simultaneously. "Malfoy money again."

"But he was lying through his teeth!" Ron complained.

Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder. He put his hand up to clasp it.

"I know it seems ridiculous," she said, "but I can understand why. He didn't kill Dumbledore, after all. When it came to the crunch he couldn't and he not only surrendered himself, he warned the Ministry in time for those other three Death Eaters to be stopped and caught before they could do more than break a few windows. But look, he didn't get off scot-free." She picked up the paper to show him. "He got two months in Azkaban for the Polyjuice too and he's on probation for the next five years. One wrong move and he's back there."

"If he can't buy his way out again," Ron said.

Harry shrugged.

"As long as he stays out of our way, what do we care? I'm almost glad he didn't get a longer sentence. I couldn't help feeling kind of sorry for him."

"Sorry? He broke your nose last year and left you under your Cloak so no one would rescue you! How can you feel sorry for him?"

"He was trying to save his parents' lives. I guess I can understand wanting to do that." His first year at Hogwarts, Voldemort had offered to bring his parents back and he'd been tempted, so tempted to agree. Only the thought that it was probably impossible and, even if it wasn't, Voldemort was a liar whose promises couldn't be trusted, had stopped him.

"Besides," Hermione added practically. "It was his testimony that put away Umbridge. For that, I can almost forgive him myself."

If he hadn't brought up "the mess with Professor Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad", no one would have thought to ask about the previous year, but after he'd recounted hearing the old toad admit to injurious misuse of Dementors against a Muggle and a minor and trying to Crucio that same minor, there'd been an uproar. After a few other witnesses had been recalled and had confirmed it, Umbridge had been removed from the bench and carted off to stand trial herself and good riddance too! Hermione wished she'd seen it, but material witnesses were barred from hearing each other's testimony. She'd just have to make do with the memory of Centaurs.

Ron snaked an arm around her and tickled her other side till she giggled.

"Mm," he said. "At least she won't have a say in the final recommendations that are coming out tomorrow and that's lucky for my brothers after that git Malfoy put them right in it. If there was anyone she hated more than you, it was Fred and George." He scowled. "Why did he have to say he bought the Darkness Powder from them?"

Hermione sighed. The revelation that one of their imports had been used in the "Great Hogwarts Break-in", as Rita had nicknamed it, was probably going to hurt them. The only question was how much. They couldn't have foreseen how Malfoy would use it, but the vital part it had played in his plans, and the coincidence that one of their love-potions had exposed Ron to Malfoy's poisoned mead, had brought their business methods under scrutiny.

"Werewolves too," added Harry. "She hated werewolves. With her gone, do you think maybe they'll loosen up the laws a bit and Remus will be able to actually get a job?"

Hermione leaned into Ron and said nothing. She didn't want to burst any rare bubble of optimism from Harry, but now that Greyback had proved that werewolves could bite and infect, at least partly, at any time of the month, she was sure Remus's situation could only get worse.

**A/N Ch 6, OotP, puts Regulus's date of death "some fifteen years previously". This story is two years later.**

**The Lestranges escaped Azkaban in January, 1996 (fifth year). Sirius escaped the summer before third year began.**

**Middle names for Crabbe and Goyle are not canon.**


	5. Fair Ravenclaw

FAIR RAVENCLAW

**Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Warning: HBP-spoilers. Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle. **

Ron hung over Hermione as she read _The Prophet; Special Edition_, having ceded it to her at his first glimpse of the front page, which was full of official jargon. Waiting for her to interpret was still quicker than puzzling through it himself. Beside them, Harry was leaning back in his chair and half-heartedly thumbing through one of Regulus Black's Dark Arts books from the pile Kreacher had sullenly given them.

"So? What's it say?" Ron asked.

"Give me a moment. I have to read it first," Hermione said. "_Cognisant of the absence of evil intent … negligence in imposition of security mechanisms … catastrophic failure …_"

She looked up, grinning, and Harry's head jerked up in tandem.

"It's all right! The twins haven't been too badly burned. They might not think so, though," she cautioned, as Ron punched his fist into the air and Harry smiled for the first time in days. "A 300-galleon fine and regular Ministry supervision. Oh, and a requirement for the Ministry to have first refusal on all their products at a half-price discount."

"What?" Ron yelped. "Not too badly burned? They've been robbed!"

Harry closed his book, marking the place with his finger.

"No, she's right," he said. "With Scrimgeour as Minister, they were lucky not to end in Azkaban."

The man had risen to the top on a deserved reputation of severity allied with grim rectitude; that was why silly Stan Shunpike was still in prison. The only mystery was how Draco Malfoy had got off so lightly now his family's money in the Minister's pocket was no longer a factor.

"It wasn't their fault the slimeball used it. They didn't even know it was him they sold it to!" Ron said instantly, but the other two returned to their reading. They'd had that argument before. "I should have turned him back into a giant slug and pushed him under the Express! I should have Petrified him and fed him Puking Pastilles till his eyeballs popped out! I should have –"

"Oh! Oh, no!" Hermione said, her face so white they could have counted all thirteen of her freckles.

"What? Is it the twins, Hermione? Are they in worse trouble than you thought?" Ron demanded.

She shook her head, her eyes scanning and re-scanning the pages.

"Remus?" Harry asked, his green eyes darkening.

"Worse," she said. "Listen. _Pursuant to the events of the fatal night, it is the considered opinion of the Dark Creatures Advisory Board that the provisions of the Werewolf Act provide insufficient protection to the general public. Supervisory and regulatory aspects will be reviewed, with particular reference to the questionable applicability and possible removal of clauses dependent on the previously-designated times of non-transmissibility …"_

The two boys stared at her.

"What does that mean?" Ron said, when it became clear she thought no further explanation necessary.

She didn't lift her eyes from the page.

"_Submissions to be accepted … the determination to be prioritised … in the space of seven days …"_

"What, Hermione?" Harry insisted.

She looked up then and blinked at their furrowed brows and puckered mouths.

"It means they're reclassifying Bill as a werewolf." She licked her lips and took a few quick, shallow breaths. "Effective next week."

"WHAT?" Ron's face was as red as one of his mum's maroon jumpers.

"It doesn't say that!" Harry said, dropping his book.

Hermione chewed on her lip, her eyes half-closed. She gulped and gulped again.

"It does, if you've read the Werewolf Act," she whispered. "That phrase about 'times of non-transmissibility' is part of the defining line between who is and who isn't a werewolf. Previously, anyone bitten during the times of non-transmissibility, which was any time other than full moon and the two days immediately before and after it, was exempted from the provisions of the Werewolf Act, upon completion of a full medical examination conducted during the next full moon. Now they're saying that they can't – that they can't guarantee that lycanthropic transmission won't be – won't be merely delayed for an – an indeterminate time –"

"But Bill's innocent," Ron protested, as she groped for a hanky. "He didn't do anything wrong. Why would they be getting him in trouble?"

Hermione blew her nose savagely.

"He got himself bitten by a werewolf," she quavered. "And under the new Ministry guidelines – never mind what time of the month it is! – that makes him one too."

"But he's not a ruddy werewolf! He hasn't changed at all except for liking his steaks rare now."

Harry picked up his book again only to slam it down on the table.

"Tell that to the Ministry," he hissed. "What did they ever care about being fair?"

Ron spat out a stream of swear words Hermione hadn't previously realised he knew. Judging from the look on Harry's face, he hadn't known them all either. She waited patiently till Ron slowed down to a string of lesser B-words before asking whether he wanted them to come along or would his family prefer to be alone.

""Of course you're coming," he said. "You're part of the family now, aren't you?"

Harry looked from one blushing face to another and his fury lightened the tiniest little bit. At least there was one thing that seemed to be going right.

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Bill's wedding was three days later. Bill had suggested moving the wedding to France, but Fleur had surprised everyone again.

"Ze Ministry can say what zey like," she'd announced, sounding more French than ever, "but Bill is Eenglish and he will remain so, long after zis foolish Ministry is gone and forgotten. We will not run away or 'ide in a corner, as if we were ashamed. We will get married immediately and ze Ministry can go 'ang zemselves!"

"But the dresses! Your family!" Molly sputtered disbelievingly.

"What do I care if ze dresses aren't ready? I am beautiful enough if I wed in a muddy sack, I theenk!" Fleur said. Hermione and Ginny exchanged involuntary glances, wondering if it was a costume she'd ever tried. "My family can be 'ere in two days. We get married zen, and after, we face ze Ministry togezzer as man and wife."

Ginny bowed her head, her cheeks heating to the colour of her hair, and jumped up as she finished speaking.

"You're absolutely right," she said. "We'll show the world what Weasleys and Delacours can do under pressure. I'll wear whatever you like." She took a deep breath for the ultimate concession and added, "Fleur."

Fleur smiled graciously on her.

"Zank you, Ginny. My family will help, but I am all Weasley now."

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Sometimes, family came above wider considerations. Abandoning Horcruxes for the moment – since, after all, they'd already managed to find and destroy the first one, which set them way ahead of any schedule they'd ever imagined – Ron, Harry and Hermione entered the preparations with as much zest as anyone, de-gnoming the garden, fetching, carrying, cleaning and helping in the kitchen, whether under Molly's supervision or Fleur's.

Arthur, meanwhile, was taking the diplomatic route, making representations to his colleagues and even repeatedly visiting Scrimgeour himself. Standing in front of an unresponsive Percy for the fourth time in two and a half days, he threw caution to the winds.

"Your brother's getting married tomorrow."

Percy picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and started leafing through them.

"Indeed," he said. "Pray convey my congratulations and felicitations. I met Miss Delacour when she competed in the Triwizard Tournament and I believe her to be a young woman of as much integrity as beauty."

"Convey them yourself," his father replied. "Are you refusing to come to your own brother's wedding?"

Percy counted three papers and set them aside, then returned to riffling through the sheaf.

"You'll have to excuse me, I'm afraid. I don't go where I'm not wanted, and my last visit to your home showed what welcome I could expect there." He folded his lips as if there was something he wanted to keep himself from saying.

Arthur's chest swelled with an old ache.

"I can't believe you!" he accused. "Would you shun your own brother to satisfy a Ministry directive that hasn't even been passed yet? It seems I never knew you at all!"

He blinked as blue eyes blazed momentarily into his, or had he imagined it? Percy's face was as politely blank as ever.

"No, you didn't," Percy murmured, turning away to hunt through a crowded drawer. "If that was all, the Minister will see you now."

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Hermione looked around at the Burrow's garden and reflected with proprietary satisfaction on what Weasleys could produce under pressure.

_We'll show them, _she thought. _The Ministry and anyone else who underestimates the worth and strength of Weasley women. _

Unbidden, a certain hook-nosed face, curtained by greasy black hair, came to mind. He hadn't mocked her as a Weasley woman, but he'd continually mocked her chosen Weasley mate, so she supposed that counted by extension. She shook all thoughts of him out of her head. This was a time for rejoicing. She doubted he even knew how.

The garden was hung with Weasley's Everlasting Fireflowers, a new product that was guaranteed to bloom all day and glow in ever-changing colours through the night. George had smuggled them out, along with Cloud Cushions –"so fluffy they float" – and S'dreamers – "Ribbons of Dreams" – seconds before the Ministry investigators had arrived, while Fred had been adjusting their self-updating books to show the previous day's sale date. More Fireflowers ringed the little clearing where the bridal couple would stand, with an arch marking the entrance.

The tables were laden with the products of Mrs Weasley's kitchen - roasts, puddings and tarts. The Delacour ladies had rolled up their sleeves on arrival and baked a competing array of pastries, petits four and a towering French wedding cake of choux pastry and spun sugar for afters.

The bridesmaids wore unadorned turquoise, a compromise colour Fleur had eventually settled on after realising that "Eet ees impossible to 'ave a colour that suits both of you, but thees ees pale enough for Gabrielle and almost green enough for Ginny. Eet will 'ave to do." Hermione looked down at her own periwinkle robes and thanked her good fortune she hadn't had to wear a colour of Fleur's choosing.

Neither had Luna. She was wearing her silver robes again, the ones she'd worn at Slughorn's party that almost matched her eyes, but accessorised with nothing more alarming than a spray of cherry-coloured Pygmy Puffs in her hair. Hermione did her best to ignore her as she expounded on the Chocolate Frog card that Ginny had just presented to Harry, after having unearthed it from deep inside the sofa that morning. Apparently, the wizard's claim to fame was his giant Patronus that could vanquish a hundred Dementors in one go, and Luna was rather improbably telling the boys that it had been his wand in Ollivanders' front window.

"Just what we need, eh, Harry?" said Ron. "Imagine a wand that could scare away that many Dementors!"

"He doesn't have to," Hermione said impatiently. "He did that himself in third year, the night we met Sirius." It was funny how Harry seemed to attract Dementors; just as well his Patronus was so strong.

"Did he? I don't remember that."

"You'd remember it, if you'd seen it, believe me!" she said. "It was when Harry and I went back. You were asleep, but I told you when you woke up."

Suddenly, she missed Hogwarts so strongly her chest hurt. It would re-open in September – almost the only good news to come from that wretched inquiry – but she wouldn't be returning.

Luna smiled.

"Phoenix-core wands produce the strongest Patronuses," she said, stroking a Pygmy Puff with one skinny finger that she then trailed down her straggly hair, "because they are self-renewing."

"The Patronuses or the phoenixes?" Ron asked sceptically.

Luna blinked at him.

"The wizards, of course."

Hermione rolled her eyes and ruthlessly changed the subject.

"Luna, I've been wondering if Ravenclaws have any historical legends that they pass down about the history of the school. The founders, for instance; have you ever heard any stories about them, their interests, perhaps, or the subjects they taught?"

Not that she expected anything, really, but she might as well ask. They needed a Ravenclaw artefact, after all, and Luna was the Ravenclaw they knew best. At worst, she might give them an idea of where not to look.

_"Bold Gryffindor from wild moor,  
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,  
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,  
Shrewd Slytherin, from fen,"_ quoted Luna vaguely.

Hermione's lips pursed and her brow furrowed. That had been the Sorting Hat's song in fourth year. Perhaps it held a clue. Bold Gryffindor had left a sword and sweet Hufflepuff a cup. Yes, both of those might fit, perhaps, if Helga's cup had been used to hold mulled wine or sweet ale or something. But Slytherin had left a ring and a locket. That seemed odd … unless it was a poison ring, like the Borgias had had. And a locket was also something that signified hiding, which was close enough to shrewdness, hidden thoughts and hidden secrets ... Right, so in that case, fair Ravenclaw …

"A mirror!" she exclaimed. "I wonder where the Mirror of Erised is now?" Probably still in Hogwarts. Her heart lifted at the possibility of having an excuse to go back.

The boys looked at her, their eyes brightening, but then Ron shook his head.

"Couldn't be," he said. "Surely Dumbledore would have known if that was the Ravenclaw one, after he had it in his hands and all."

Harry was less sure.

"But that was first year. He wasn't looking for – for You-Know-What then."

_No good, _thought Hermione glumly. _An embedded Horcrux would have given Quirrell a way to bypass the Mirror's defences. He didn't have one so that means it can't be what we're looking for._

"If you're not going to explain, perhaps you'd better not talk about it in front of us," Ginny said sharply. "Just in case we go hunting for the nearest Death Eater to blab all your secrets too!" She pushed past them, her back very straight and her eyes suspiciously bright.

"Wonder what's eating her," Ron said.

Harry stared at the ground and scuffed the grass with his foot, but it was Luna who spoke.

"It's worse being a fifth leg to a Tripodial Spattlepot than a Crup," she said. "You feel so much more unnecessary." She smiled amiably round at them and followed Ginny.

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Hermione looked up at the familiar black scowl and wondered if it was blacker and bleaker than she remembered or if it was just the night that was darker?

"I was hoping you'd have some ideas of what to look for, Professor. We're going to Godric's Hollow after Harry's birthday. It can't be before because Harry thinks it might invalidate the Blood protection if we leave for good before then. There might be a founder's artefact there, if the Dark Lord was planning to use Harry's death that way, but what do we look out for?" _Something old, of course, but that wasn't much to go on._

Snape looked her over until she couldn't look back.

"What do you have so far?"

"The ring and the locket and the diary have all been destroyed, so there's still the Hufflepuff cup, Nagini, if Dumbledore was right about her, and at least one other thing that's probably connected with the founders somehow. The first time we discussed it, you suggested his wand as a possible Gryffindor item and you said you didn't think it would turn out to be Harry. I hope you're right." She took a deep breath. "I did have a thought yesterday at the wedding, but it's probably wrong. It couldn't be the Mirror of Erised, could it?"

Both eyebrows raised and both eyes widened, as black and impenetrable as ever.

"I believe not, but I imagine you had a reason for thinking of it."

"It was something Luna said, Luna Lovegood," she said defensively.

His lip curled.

"There's no need to remind me of her identity. I suppose you were looking for a Ravenclaw to consult and she was the most convenient. And?"

"She quoted one of the Sorting Hat's songs that mentioned 'fair Ravenclaw' and, well, it was just a sudden thought." She grimaced. "I should have known better than to listen, though, especially after that rigmarole she was talking about the wand in Ollivander's window."

He regarded her narrowly.

"What about the wand?"

"She said she knew who it belonged to." Hermione shrugged apologetically. "But it was probably just one of her stories."

His next words made her jaw drop.

I should imagine she would know, if anyone did."

"I beg your pardon?" she breathed.

"Her great-grandmother was an Ollivander. Surely someone so eagle-eyed as yourself would have noticed the family resemblance," he sniped. "Silver-grey eyes are not very common, even in the wizarding world."

"You're joking!"

"I am not accustomed to joking, Miss Granger."

"You used to be," she said before she could stop herself.

His eyes narrowed to slits.

"Perhaps you'd like to explain yourself?"

"You know exactly what I mean, Mr Half-Blood Prince! Your Potions book; the one Harry was using all year. He told me you said it was yours, just before you, um, left." She glanced at him sidelong. "I thought you had a rather nasty sense of humour as a boy."

He smirked.

"Your disapproval couldn't possibly have been attributed to jealousy, of course," he said.

She bit her lip. She knew now why he'd always scorned her book-knowledge and it hadn't been anti-Gryffindor bias at all. She'd tailored other people's spells to her needs, but she'd never thought of making up her own and when she compared his experimental approach to Potions with her stubborn insistence on following instructions, it brought hot blood rushing to her cheeks.

"I kept it," she admitted. "Harry hid it in the Room of Requirement and he was too upset to go back for it, but I did, our last night at Hogwarts. It was exactly where he'd said it was. I almost didn't find it, but he'd marked the place, you see. They don't know I took it." And she was babbling. Why was she babbling?

"I suppose you've been studying it every night after they fall asleep, ready to take credit for the spells he didn't reach. Or don't you know which they are?"

"No, I don't, and I wouldn't do that anyway! I never take credit for other people's work and you should know that about me at least!" She found she was trembling with rage and turned away hastily so he wouldn't see, but she could feel his eyes on her back. She needed to change the subject fast.

"Did you mean that about Luna? She's an Ollivander? How do you know?" she asked.

"I was in school with her mother. She had a very open, very questioning mind. Luna resembles her greatly."

"_Luna?"_ She turned back to him in time to see the softness of memory in his eyes. It reminded her of the way he used to look at Draco in class. "You _like_ Luna?" Why did that make her chest burn and her throat ache? She pressed forward, her hands clenched tight as her teeth. "Why did you choose _me_ as your liaison if _she's_ your favourite student? Why put me in the middle when you could have had her?"

He sneered down at her.

"Is that vaunted memory failing you already? You asked if there was no one I trusted more than you and you were told it had to be someone in Potter's confidence. Luna might be Evanna Lynch's daughter, but she's not in Potter's inner circle!"

She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want him looking at her. Finding the aspidistra bush at hand, she pulled off a leaf and then another. And then a cold hand was on hers, forbidding her from reaching for a third.

"What is this obsession you have with ripping up your parents' shrubbery?" he asked.

"What do you care?" she muttered.

"For the shrubbery, not at all, but for the chance that your parents become suspicious of activity in their backyard and try to catch the culprits a great deal."

She wrenched herself away and scrubbed fiercely at her face, her back turned to him. She didn't understand herself why she was so angry. She didn't even like him much. She liked Ron. Loved Ron.

"I'm sorry," she said, casting around for something to explain away her temper. "I'm just feeling the pressure at the moment. I heard Mr Weasley telling Bill he'd invited Percy and I was so afraid there'd be a Death Eater attack during the wedding."

"A rather wild assumption," he told her.

She frowned, her hands twisting in her jumper.

"He isn't a Death Eater, then? We wondered."

He snorted and shook his head at her folly.

"That boy a Death Eater! He's the straightest die in the family. Why, what on earth do you think the Dark Lord could offer him? Or threaten him with?"

Her hands twisted tighter.

"I don't understand," she ventured.

He looked down his long, large nose at her and explained as to a particularly dunderheaded first year.

"He's too competent to need help in his career, too straight to blackmail, too personally brave to intimidate, and too separated from his family and Miss Clearwater for it to be worth using them against him."

She stared slack-jawed at his earnestness.

"Do you think – Is that why he walked out on them?" she wondered aloud.

He shrugged, one interrogative eyebrow raised.

"How should I know? I'm not in the boy's confidence, but I don't imagine he was in yours either. Did he have any reason to know Potter wasn't making it all up?"

Her hands went to her hips and her chin thrust pugnaciously forward.

"He knew Harry! He should have known he wouldn't lie!"

He tilted his head, his voice low and silky.

"Indeed? He habitually lied to me and I can only imagine that he'd be as ready to deceive a prefect as a teacher. But we've wasted enough time on Percy Weasley. Was there anything else?"

Her head reared back to regard him narrowly.

"You mean you'd trust him?" she demanded.

"Idiot girl! I trust no one." He turned to leave and paused. "Luna has a way of catching what the rest of us miss, though she doesn't always know herself what she's seen. It occurs to me that she may have meant something else by that reference to the Sorting Hat's song. Something that was so obvious even Dumbledore missed it."

Hermione scowled. Luna Lovegood catch something Dumbledore had missed? She didn't believe it.

"Not the words, Miss Granger," he continued, "but the speaker. The medium is the message, in this case. Who more likely to know the shape and style of the founder's artefacts than the one that was there in the founders' time? The Sorting Hat itself."

The tight, hard knot that was Hermione unclenched. She could only stare, open-mouthed.

"Then – then we'll _have_ to go back to Hogwarts," she said at last, her chest so hollow she felt each breath. That was good news, wasn't it? Wasn't it? "You already suggested talking to Hagrid and Moaning Myrtle last time and then there's the Chamber of Secrets and the Room of Requirement and – and maybe some of the other teachers, but – Wouldn't Dumbledore have thought of the Hat already? I mean, it was in his office," (she'd seen it the day he recruited her for these meetings) "he used to see it every day, how could he miss that?"

His words echoed behind him long after he left.

"He never claimed to be infallible, Miss Granger. Nor was he. I've told you that before."

**A/N Canon mentions a Werewolf Code of Conduct and a Werewolf Register, but not a Werewolf Act. I've chosen to assume there is one and that it defines both the others.**

**Fireflowers, Cloud Cushions and S'dreamers are not canon.**

**Andros the Invincible, the Ancient Greek wizard with the giant-sized Patronus, is not book-canon, but is a JK-produced Famous Wizard Card from the Chamber of Secrets game. No exact date is given for him, but the date from which Ollivanders began making fine wands, 382 BC, is consistent with the Ancient Greek Empire. **

**Tripodial (ie three-legged) Spattlepots are not canon, but no sillier than other mythical creatures mentioned by Luna at various times. (I've used them as a magical alternative to tricycles, for Luna to make a "fifth wheel" analogy about Ginny and the trio.) **

**Both Luna and Mr Ollivander have round, protuberant eyes of the same distinctive colour in canon and both have a certain detachment; clue or coincidence?**

**Evanna Lynch is, of course, the true name of the actor who plays Luna in the movie and it seemed so perfect for Luna's mother that I couldn't resist borrowing it, but no resemblance to the actor herself is intended.**

**"The medium is the message" was famously first said by Marshall McLuhan in the 60s. **

**Anyone interested in a more comprehensive look at my views on Percy and his estrangement may like to see my Percy-centric SSHG fic, "Reunion". **


	6. Cuckoo in the Nest

CUCKOO IN THE NEST

**Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Warning: HBP-spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers. This is unbetaed as both my previewers are currently unavailable. Please let me know if you notice any mistakes. **

On their second-last day, Hermione sent the boys ahead after breakfast and cleaned the kitchen by herself. Even without magic, it didn't take long, but long enough for her to be still there when their reluctant hostess arrived. The Dursleys had done a sterling job of avoiding them so far, but there were questions that needed answering and the boys had decided that Hermione was the likeliest to coax the answers out of them.

"It's Harry's birthday tomorrow," she said. Waiting for Mrs Dursley to speak first was probably not a good idea. "We'll be off then."

The woman sniffed, her horsy face looking more equine than ever.

"I know when his birthday is," she snapped.

Hermione wiped down the sink and wrung out the dishcloth.

"I would never have guessed that if the Xmas presents you used to send him at Hogwarts were any guide." She bit her lip and reminded herself that, however low her tolerance for Dursleyness might be, tactlessness would get her nowhere.

Mrs Dursley bridled.

"I'll have you know he never missed out," she said.

Hermione stared at her with furrowed brow and puckered mouth.

"But you sent him things like old socks, used tissues –"

"It wasn't used. I'd never send something so insanitary through the mail."

Hermione snorted at Mrs Dursley's strange priorities.

"The nicest thing you ever sent him was 50p," she pointed out.

"And what's wrong with that?" Harry's aunt demanded. "He could have turned it into anything he wanted, couldn't he? My sister was always boasting about turning socks into sailboats and toffees into treasures. What could he possibly have needed from us that he couldn't magic up himself, just the way he wanted it?"

For a long moment, Hermione gaped at her as she bustled around the kitchen, wiping all the surfaces Hermione had just wiped.

"What about before he started Hogwarts? Did you ever give him a decent present then, before he even knew about magic?"

Mrs Dursley sniffed disparagingly.

"And why should we? He was doing magic then, wasn't he? Killed the Dark Lord as a baby, didn't he? Grew back his hair, flew onto the roof at school, let the snakes out at the zoo. What did he need from us?"

Hermione's hands went to her hips and her hair frizzed up around her face.

"How about a little love and kindness?" she said. "He was a child under your care, your own nephew!"

"A cuckoo in the nest, just like Lily," Mrs Dursley spat. "A freak! But I made sure my Dudders didn't suffer like I did, growing up with a witch in the family. We tried to cure him and it would have worked too if they'd only left him alone and not taken him to that freak school you all went to."

The world tipped sideways and righted itself again as Hermione blinked at her.

"You can't just suppress someone's magic, Mrs Dursley, it doesn't work that way. It's too strong. It would have just bubbled up and burst through, wilder and stronger the longer it was left dormant."

"Then my sister was a liar, as well as a freak. I should have known. She said her friend's mother had lost all her magic and if a full-grown woman could lose her magic, why not a boy?" She rinsed and wrung out the dishcloth and draped it over the tap, then moved to the fridge for some bacon.

Hermione eyed her doubtfully.

"Her friend's mother? Which friend? Do you mean Professor Snape?"

"Yes, the murderer. Severus Snape!" She'd heard the name on the nightly news too often for her tongue to trip on it. "The one that became a Death Eater right out of school and told her so too. Only she begged and pleaded with him to go to Dumbledore. He didn't want to. He said they'd throw him in Azkaban and he wasn't going to risk it. But he did in the end."

"Right out of school?" That couldn't be right. "You mean he told her years later that he'd become a Death Eater, and then –"

"I think I know what I mean better than you, thank you very much!" Mrs Dursley set the frying pan on the stove and began breaking eggs into a bowl. "He stood in my mother's kitchen as large as life not two months after they finished school for the last time and argued with her till he was blue in the face. It was the day I met Vernon for the first time. I had to get out because they were screaming all over the house, and then Lily sent for Dumbledore and I went for a walk to get away from them all and bumped into Vernon at the local chippie." Her face softened. "He was ordering chips and battered savs and scallops, and he asked if I'd join him in the park and help him eat them."

Hermione blinked, torn between amusement and bewilderment. Snape couldn't have confessed and joined Dumbledore two months out from school. That didn't make sense.

"Now get out of my kitchen!" Mrs Dursley nodded viciously, pointing at the door. "I can hardly wait to see the back of you. All three of you!"

"We'll make sure to leave straight after breakfast then. And just for your information, we feel exactly the same about you, Mrs Dursley. We wouldn't have stayed here a minute if Dumbledore hadn't said to. I've seen Death Eaters with more kindness in their veins than you lot."

As Hermione climbed the stairs, thinking of all the other things she'd have liked to say to Harry's aunt, Dudley was coming down them. He yelped when he saw her and flattened his bulk ineffectually against the wall.

"Oh, honestly," she snapped. "What are you making such a fuss for? I've been here weeks and haven't hexed you. As if I'd bother!"

"All his other friends have," Dudley said, inching down the stairs with his back pressed to the wall and his hands shielding his abdomen and groin. "Right from the time that giant lunatic came when he was eleven and gave me a pig's tail. I had to go to hospital to have it off and all the doctors and nurses came to look and have a laugh and I couldn't sit down for a month. I had to go to Smeltings with an air-cushion taped to my trousers."

It seemed to be the day for disturbing revelations.

"You mean Hagrid," she said incredulously. "_Hagrid_ gave you a pig's tail? What did you do to provoke him?" Hagrid might be a bit rough around the edges, but he wouldn't hex a kid.

"Nothing. He was arguing with my dad and then he turned and poked his umbrella-thingy at me and suddenly I had a tail. So get away from me. I don't want anything to do with you freaks." With that, he was past her and he ran the rest of the way, slamming the kitchen door safely behind him.

She fobbed off Harry and Ron when they asked if she'd managed to learn anything from Harry's aunt.

"Only that the Dursleys are all nutters," she said. "She told me they didn't send you anything decent as presents because you could just Transfigure what you wanted."

"Not about me, about Snape," Harry said. "Didn't she tell you anything?"

Hermione's hand paused on its way to picking up Regulus's book on Curse Reconstruction. She couldn't tell him his aunt thought Snape had started working for Dumbledore before he passed on the prophecy. It would only upset him and, besides, it couldn't be true. She'd have to ask Snape himself what that scene had been about. Not that he was likely to say.

"She wasn't interested. But she did mention that his mum apparently lost her magic. I suppose she must have been depressed, like Tonks all last year."

"Having a kid like Snape'd make anyone depressed," Ron said, and Harry laughed.

The day dragged, but finally the boys went to bed and she could Apparate to her parents' garden. Snape was waiting by the hedge as usual.

"Well?" he asked, after casting the privacy spells. "What is it this time? Have you news of another Horcrux or has Potter got a hangnail?"

Hermione glared at him.

"Neither. I heard something rather disturbing at the Dursleys and I wanted to ask you about it."

"That sounds like another waste of my time. Is it worth risking my life for?" he asked.

She looked him up and down, noting the crease between his brows, the set of his mouth and the tautness of his stance. It probably hadn't been a good day for him either, but she wasn't inclined to feel sympathy tonight.

"How long have you been working for Dumbledore?" she said abruptly, and watched the slight widening of his eyes and jerking of his chin.

"You don't need to know and therefore you need not to know. If that's all?"

She grabbed his sleeve as he turned to leave, then let it go when he raised an eyebrow, but she didn't step back or drop her gaze.

"Wait!" She took a deep breath. "Mrs Dursley says you changed sides two months after you finished school. She says Lily persuaded you to speak to Dumbledore."

His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned.

"I fail to see why I should be interested in anything Petunia Dursley might have said."

"Is it true?" she pressed.

"That I'm not interested in the maunderings of that spiteful harridan? Certainly."

"That Dumbledore recruited you years before you told the prophecy? That you were working for him?" She wanted him to deny it. Even if he had to lie, she wanted him to deny it.

"I've already told you that the less you know about my past the better."

"It is true then." The bottom had dropped out of her stomach and her heart was plummeting through it. "How could it be?"

"I leave that to yourself to determine. Dangerous knowledge, indeed; I suggest you Obliviate Mrs Dursley before you leave tomorrow. You do know the spell, I imagine? Use Legilimency to find the right memory. And I remind you that you swore utmost discretion to me, neither to pry into my secrets nor to pass them on."

Again he turned to leave. Again she held him back, not with a hand but with an argument.

"That isn't good enough, Professor. Not now. I can only see two ways you could have told the prophecy if you were already working for Dumbledore at the time: either you betrayed Dumbledore after working with him for a while, in which case you could be betraying me now –"

"This news affects nothing. I am not more likely to betray you than I ever was."

"Or he told you to tell it," she continued.

He loomed over her, a darker shadow against the dark hedge.

"Or it was harvested from my mind by Legilimency or tricked out of me when I was drunk or a dozen other ways the news could have got out."

She shook her head.

"Dumbledore told Harry that you told your master, because it concerned him greatly. That doesn't match with any other way but two. Either you betrayed Dumbledore for You-Know-Who or Dumbledore was your master and you told him how much you'd heard. Which is it?"

He was watching her from behind his hair.

"And you trust his killer to tell you?" he sneered.

"I'm here, aren't I? It can't be any more dangerous for you to answer than it is for us to meet at all. Tell me!"

He drew himself up and looked down the length of a long nose at her.

"Your guesswork is improving. As you've deduced, I followed orders. And Potter _must not_ know."

She gazed up at him, studying the urgency in his lined face.

"Because it would get back to You-Know-Who?" she asked.

"Because it would destroy him. He must not know. Not now. After all is over, it will not matter."

She took a step back, then another. Her legs felt too shaky to stand. She shook her head, gulping.

"Then it wasn't real? All Dumbledore's love and care … Harry was just a weapon, like he thought in fifth year; he was just a tool in Dumbledore's hands? Defeat Vold – You-Know-Who and then it doesn't matter if he dies, was that it?"

He removed her clutching hands from his coat and she wondered vaguely when she'd come close enough to grab it. His hands were cold, but she wouldn't let them go.

"We were all tools to Dumbledore, even himself," he said in a low voice. "Do you think he valued Potter less than himself, though he died for him?"

"But –"

He released her hands with a little push and turned away from her.

"What do you know of it, you who have only played at heroes? There are things worse than death. There are even things worse than sending friends to their death."

_Or killing them yourself. _The words hung in the air between them.

"Tell me. I need to understand."

His back was rigid, but straight.

"No."

Her eyes burned, but he didn't turn towards her.

"I'm your student and I need to know so that I can do the right thing myself when the time comes. You must tell me," she said, and waited, watching his head drop then rise again. The pause seemed endless till he began, slowly, reluctantly, to speak.

"It was a desperate gamble, almost a last throw of the dice. The Dark Lord was winning everywhere and we were beginning to suspect there was a spy in the Order because so many were dying. Every word I brought and every word I took back had to be carefully weighed in the balance. And then this opportunity arose."

"This _opportunity_?" She recoiled. "Is that what you called it?"

"Dumbledore did not believe in prophecies, but he thought the Dark Lord might. He decided to feed him just enough to lure him into a false step, not enough to identify the subject. Only we didn't expect him to decide it was a baby."

She watched his white-knuckled fists and remembered what he'd told her the last time she accused him of betraying a baby. _'Born', not 'will be born'; _there'd been no way of knowing from the overheard fragment that it referred to a child as yet unborn.

"When the Dark Lord chose the Potter child, I was – we were horrified. But Dumbledore warned the Potters and hid them in what should have been safety. But someone kept betraying them! The number of times I sent a warning just in time – until the only safety left was a Fidelius. We thought it would be temporary, just until we'd trapped the spy with traceable tidbits of information. And it would have worked, if Potter and Black hadn't been so arrogant as to change the Secret Keeper without telling even the Head of the Order. It would have worked."

Hermione couldn't see his face behind its shield of hair, but she could see the bobbing of his Adams-apple.

"And you wouldn't have lost your friend," she said. Very daringly, she placed her hand over his, in mirror image of the way his hand had covered hers the last time they met. She held her breath, but he didn't pull away as she'd half-expected. _Is that why you want to die? _She didn't quite dare ask him.

All she wanted to do after that traumatic meeting was fall onto the Dursleys' couch and sleep her sorrow and confusion away, but when she entered the living room she found the boys sitting there.

"Anything you want to tell us?" Ron said.

Her hands found each other and clenched hard.

"I was visiting my parents," she said, grateful for Snape's forethought in choosing that meeting-place. She didn't even have to lie.

"Is that where you disappear to sometimes at night?" Harry asked.

"Yes, I've gone there before. Just to check in on them. They don't know I come." She grimaced. "We'd only get into an argument. They're still angry about all the things I never told them all these years."

"Why didn't you tell us? We'd have come with you. It isn't safe to go alone."

Again she blessed Snape's forethought.

"You can't. The house is warded. If anyone but me" (_and Snape) _"goes there, it triggers alarms. So, don't worry, it's as safe as anywhere is these days."

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

There were Dementors at Godric's Hollow. Not just a couple, but a colony.

"Whoa," Ron said, as they stared at swirling fog and dark, ragged figures from a safe vantage-point. "I've never seen anything like it."

"We have," Hermione reminded him. "There was a whole swarm the night we saved Buckbeak and Sirius. You didn't see because you were unconscious. And Harry held them off single-handed. It'll be okay. There's three of us this time."

"Hermione," Harry whispered. "I don't know if I can."

"Whyever not? You've cast a Patronus tons of times before."

He looked down, his face set.

"My happy thought used to be my dad, leastways that's who I was thinking of when I drove the Dementors away that night. And then I didn't really need to concentrate on a happy thought when I was teaching you because there weren't really any Dementors there so I could do it out of habit. But, well, I'm not sure my dad's a happy enough thought any more."

"Eh?" Ron asked. "Why wouldn't he be?"

Harry blushed.

"Because, well, you remember I told you about looking in Snape's Pensieve and seeing my dad and Sirius ragging on Snape? I know it was Snape and all and I'm sure he must have deserved it, but – I just didn't much like what I saw and I'm not sure I can drive off this many Dementors thinking of my dad. Even with you two helping."

"What about your mum? Wouldn't she do?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head.

"When I think of my mum, all I remember is the way she looked at him that day in the Pensieve." His face twitched. "She looked at him like he was Malfoy. Sirius and Remus told me that she really did fall in love with him afterwards, but when I remember how she looked, it's hard to believe it." He sighed. "Oh, I know she must have! I'm just not sure I can manage a Patronus out of it, not when there's so many of them and they make me hear her dying. Begging for my life and screaming and dying. Or I'm facing Voldemort myself, which is just as bad."

"Blimey," Ron said. "What do we do then?"

"Haven't you ever used any thought but your dad?" Hermione said. "Think, Harry. Are you sure you don't have another memory you can use?"

There was a pause and suddenly Harry's eyes shone brightest emerald.

"You're brilliant, Hermione! Of course there was. When Umbridge sent that Dementor after me, I didn't use Dad." He ducked his head shyly. "I used you two."

All three blushed and looked in different directions, and then Ron cleared his throat.

"This'd be a good time to have that wand Luna was telling us about, the one from Ollivander's window. Pity it was just one of her stories," he said.

Hermione chewed on her lip. She hadn't told them yet about that relationship. It would have been too difficult to explain how she knew, but this might be her chance.

"I wonder if it is," she said slowly to the boys' surprise. "They look a lot alike, Luna and Ollivander, don't they? And I think I read once that he was a Ravenclaw."

Ron goggled at her.

"You're not taking one of Luna's stories seriously, are you? They don't call her Loony for nothing. What about Storkracks and Primpies and Bargles? Don't tell me you suddenly believe in those too."

"Of course not," Hermione said defensively, resolving to look for a good wizarding genealogy book at the first opportunity so she could prove him wrong. "It was just a thought."

"You have to admit she was right about Thestrals," Harry told him. "You thought I was ill when I saw them pulling the carriages, but Luna didn't."

"Yeah, but –"

"Let's not argue about it now," Hermione said. "Your parents might know, Ron, since she is a neighbour, after all. We'll ask them sometime. Right now we've got Dementors to clear out."

"Okay, let's just do it," Harry said. They followed him down the hill towards the ruins of the isolated cottage he'd briefly lived in as child.

"I wasn't sure we'd even be able to see it," Hermione whispered. "I didn't know if it was still under Fidelius or not. It would have been awful if Harry had to go in alone and we were stuck outside."

"But how would Hagrid have pulled him out if he couldn't see it?" Ron asked.

"He was one of the people in on the secret," Hermione said. "He'd been there before. I thought that might be why Dumbledore sent him."

Ron glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

"How do you know that?"

"I asked him once in third year when I used to visit him by myself to work on Buckbeak's case," she said.

At that moment, the Dementors seemed to become aware of their presence. Suddenly, there were dozens of ragged figures gliding or flying towards them.

"_Expecto Patronum!_" Harry said, and Ron and Hermione echoed him a half-second later. "_Expecto Patronum!_"

Out from Harry's wand sprang Prongs, tall and silver and magnificent, galloping forward in antlered splendour. Gambolling around his hooves then shooting off to the left and right like sheepdogs came Hermione's shining otter and Ron's tenacious Jack Russell, bright as moonlight. Around and around the Dementors they raced, driving them back further and further. And the Dementors fled.

"Yes!" shouted Ron, pumping his wand hand in the air. "That was amazing!"

He reached out to pat his silver dog, but his hand went through and then it was licking his face. He felt his cheeks in wonder. They were dry and clean.

"Weird!" he said, looking around to see where it had gone. Beside him, Harry and Hermione were grinning with delight at empty space. The Patronuses were gone.

Harry was the first to recollect himself.

"We should get started right away," he said, "before anyone comes looking. Everyone from miles around probably caught some of that."

"Started on what?" Ron said, scratching his chin. "It's all ruins."

Hermione lifted her wand. Her research had given her ideas. She took a few steps past the boys and waved her wand in a circular manner to encompass all the ruined cottage.

"Specialis Revelio Horcrux," she chanted, tweaking Scarpin's Revelaspell as her studies had suggested she could.

A sickly green light formed in the shape of a key a little above the rubble.

"You're joking," Ron muttered. "The front door key was a Horcrux?"

"Not the front door," Harry said. "Doesn't this remind you of anything?"

Ron shrugged.

"Can't say that it does. Should it?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "But do you think it's coincidence that Flitwick Charmed flying keys to guard the Philosopher's Stone? Because it does seem a bit too good to be true to me." He pointed his wand just under the conjured light, adding, "Accio Horcrux key."

The rubble shifted and a large gold key zoomed into Harry's hand. It had a head shaped like an eagle and a long cylindrical shaft with two claw-shaped protrusions near the end.

Hermione turned to examine it.

"Harry," she said, "I'll bet you're absolutely right! This must be the Ravenclaw Horcrux."

"Why didn't Dumbledore know, though?" Harry wondered aloud. "You'd think he'd have asked Flitwick for ideas on what Ravenclaw could have left."

"I suppose it could have been as much a secret as Slytherin's Chamber," Hermione suggested. "Maybe it was something only Ravenclaws were allowed to know."

"Maybe."

Ron laughed.

"Who cares why?" he said. "All that matters is we've done it. Dumbledore searched for years to find one Horcrux and we've found two in two months. At this rate, we'll be done by Halloween."

"I hardly think so," Hermione said. "We don't have any leads on Hufflepuff's cup at all." Unless Hepzibah Smith was related to Zacharias, but Smith was such a very common name.

"And there's still a whopping great snake to kill," Harry reminded him.

Ron waved a dismissive hand.

"How hard can Nagini be after you've killed a Basilisk?" he asked.

Harry grimaced.

"The Basilisk killed me first, you know. If not for Fawkes, I wouldn't be here. But how are we supposed to find Fawkes without Dumbledore?"

"We'll think of something," Ron assured him. "Just see if we don't."

**A/N Dudley went to hospital to get his tail removed on Sept 1 of Harry's first year.**

**In HBP, "the Seer Overheard", Dumbledore told Harry that Snape was already working for Voldemort when he passed on the prophecy fragment and he mentioned that Snape told "his master", but he didn't specifically identify Voldemort as that master. This chapter gives a possible alternate reading of those words. Dumbledore's unfinished comment about "the reason he returned" did not, in that case, refer to Snape's repentance.**

**Although Sirius accused Peter of having been "passing information … for a year before Lily and James died" (PoA, ch 19), I've chosen to follow the Harry Potter Lexicon Timeline, which places Pettigrew's spying as starting as early as 1979, before the prophecy was made. **

**Ron got the names of Luna's imaginary creatures wrong. He meant Crumple-horned Snorkacks, Gulping Plimpies and Nargles. Plimpies (but not the Gulping kind) are mentioned in Fantastic Beasts as a type of fish.**


	7. Pointless Speculation

POINTLESS SPECULATION

**Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.**

**Warning: HBP-spoilers. Thanks to all my reviewers and my previewers, Bellegeste and cckeimig. **

Harry hated coming back to Grimmauld Place, but when it came down to it there was nowhere else to go. They weren't welcome at the Dursleys, who'd seen them off with injunctions to never return, nor, for other reasons, at the Grangers, the Burrow would mean acceding to Mrs Weasley's maternal authority, and lodgings in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade or even the Muggle world were too exposed to even consider.

"We could get Bill to teach us to set wards," Ron had suggested rather half-heartedly as they walked through a deserted park somewhere near Bristol, considering their options.

"That might do when we're on the move," Harry said, "but not when we're staying in one place for weeks or longer. Voldemort found my parents, even through a Fidelius. If he's looking for me, he'll slice through our wards like butter. I'm not ready to face him yet. We still have at least two You-Know-Whats to go."

"You mean _we're_ not ready to face him," Ron corrected. "We're not letting you go alone. Right, Hermione?"

"Absolutely."

"And you're sure your parents –"

"My mum would nag worse than yours." She poked him in the arm. "She doesn't approve of us dropping out of school to fight a war she thinks we're too young to be involved in anyway. Besides, we'd have to replace Dumbledore's wards with our own or they'd ring incessantly while you and Harry were there and even louder every time you went in or out, and we already agreed that any wards we set wouldn't be strong enough."

Also, of course, it would mean finding a new meeting-place when she needed to consult Professor Snape, and that just wasn't an option. She'd deserve every sneer he gave her, if she let the boys talk her into this.

"Maybe it was a mistake to tell the Order they could keep it on as headquarters," Harry said. His hand went to his pocket and they knew he was fondling the eagle-headed key again. "It won't be easy keeping everything secret while we're living in the same house as some of them and seeing them every time there's a meeting."

Ron disagreed.

"One word, Harry: Snape. The house is alarmed against him now, but if the Order weren't there, he might get in and attack us before we could stop him."

"There is that," Hermione said, smiling to hide the lump in her throat. She hated hearing them talk about Snape, hated it, especially now that she knew more about what he'd given up for their sake. He wasn't a nice man, he probably never had been, but she knew now, as she hadn't in school, that nice didn't mean much. "We'll just have to be very careful what we say in front of them."

"Better yet, let's make it a rule now never to talk about plans or ideas or anything without first casting Muffliato." Harry fixed Hermione with a challenging glare. "And don't remind me who made that spell. It doesn't matter, okay? If it works and it's not dark or dangerous, then it's silly to refuse to use it when we need it."

"He's right, Hermione."

She leaned against Ron's shoulder so she didn't have to meet their eyes, and felt his arm curl around her.

"I happen to agree with you, actually," she said and took a long deep breath. "That's why I brought the Prince's book with me."

Harry's mouth fell open, but at first no words came out. He tried again.

"You _what_!"

"I fetched it from the Room of Requirement the night before we left school and brought it with me." She curled herself further into Ron's embrace for reassurance.

"But you hated that book! You were always telling me off for reading it and trusting it!" Harry spluttered.

"Until you knew it was Snape's," Ron said slowly, his arm falling away from her. "I remember now, when Harry said the Prince was evil after we knew he'd murdered Dumbledore, you said that evil was too strong a word. You don't still trust the nasty, slimy git, do you?"

Hermione stared at the ground, wrapping her own arms around herself. She should have known they'd react this way, however much they'd agreed with her position before they knew she shared it. She swallowed hard.

"I knew you'd want the book back eventually, Harry. It's got too many useful spells and potions to chuck it out, just because the person who wrote it grew up to be a Death Eater and a murderer." _Not a murderer; a soldier under orders._ She shook her head and swallowed again. "He wasn't a murderer when he wrote it. You studied that book all year and you only found one spell that was darker than one of Ron's brothers' Wheezes."

"How do you know he wasn't a murderer?" Harry glowered at her. "That spell was for killing. He wrote on it that it was for enemies."

"Because we know who his enemies were in school and he didn't kill any of them, did he?" she snapped back. "Don't you think Dumbledore would have known if he had? Don't you think Sirius or Lupin would have told you if there was ever any question of someone he didn't like disappearing or turning up dead?"

"Maybe he just didn't get the opportunity," Ron said. "Doesn't mean he didn't want to."

There was nothing she could say to that. Pointing out that he was hardly the only one, that at least one of those enemies had tried to kill him, wouldn't go down well with either of her friends, no matter how true it was.

"That spell almost killed Draco Malfoy," Harry reminded her.

"I know," she said. "I didn't say that one wasn't dark, only that the other ones weren't and that some of them, like Muffliato, are very useful. And if we can use them to do what we need to do, we should. It's not like they're Unforgivables or anything, is it?"

"But Sectumsempra is a spell for killing," Harry insisted.

"It might be," Hermione said. "I didn't say it wasn't. But we can't be sure it is, either. You've only ever cast it once and, if Malfoy was trying to Crucio you, I suppose you hit back with all your strength."

Ron scoffed, but Harry's brow furrowed and his eyes half-closed.

"I might have seen it cast another time," he said. "Remember I told you how I saw my dad and Sirius ragging on him that time? He cast something that cut my dad's cheek, I don't know what, but I suppose it might have been that."

"If it was, he probably just didn't cast it straight," Ron said. "He tried to kill your dad and he missed."

Harry's brow creased even more.

"I don't think he did, actually," he said slowly. "I'm pretty sure he was pointing his wand straight at him. And it would have been pretty stupid to try, because he was surrounded by half his class."

Hermione crossed her fingers inside her fists and stared very hard at the tussocks of grass so she wouldn't be tempted to say, "See!"

"You sure about that?" Ron asked.

"Pretty sure, yeah." He stared back into the past, then suddenly shook his head. "No, I don't think it could have been Sectumsempra. There was a flash of light when he did it and I don't remember seeing one when I did. Maybe there was. I was so shocked I couldn't look at anything but the blood pouring out of his chest. I thought I'd killed him."

"Might be worth checking if you can control it, though," said Ron. "You could cast it at, oh, I don't know, a Chocolate Frog, maybe, or an apple or something and see how much it cuts."

"What's the point of that?" Harry asked.

"Because it's a weapon and you know you can make it work and we're going to need all the weapons we can get." Ron rubbed the back of his head. "And we need to know how to use it. How else do you think we're going to find out, ask Snape?"

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

Destroying the Ravenclaw Horcrux came first. Harry pulled it out of his pocket as soon as they were settled in to their rooms, which was as simple as choosing a pair of adjoining bedrooms with empty walls and dumping their knapsacks. They gathered in Hermione's room and cast Muffliato as planned, Ron lounging on the chair and Harry and Hermione perching on the bed. The house was echoingly empty with only Lupin and Tonks living there; even the portrait of Mrs Black had seemed to be asleep when they tiptoed past it, but they weren't taking any chances.

"What shall we do with this one?" Hermione asked, leaning back and squirming sideways a bit to avoid the lump in her mattress, only to find a bigger one with her other leg. At the other end of the bed, Harry seemed to be doing the same. Ugh. She'd have to try turning the mattress tonight before bedtime if she wanted to get any sleep on it.

"It's still the same two choices, Bill or Mad-Eye," she reminded them. Too bad she couldn't suggest Snape, but she could ask him tonight. Maybe he'd be able to teach her at least some of what she needed to know.

"Bill isn't back from his honeymoon until next week," Ron pointed out.

Harry frowned at the key, running his finger up and down the shaft.

"I'm not sure I want to ask Moody. He's sure to want to know where we got it and why we brought back something we thought might be dark." He stood the key upright on his palm, with the beak turned towards him, and turned it this way and that. "And then he'll start picking holes in our answers until it turns into a full-on interrogation."

"You think we should wait then?" Hermione asked.

"I wonder if he has 'an eye for the ladies', as Mum calls it. Maybe you could charm him into letting you borrow it and we won't need to tell him anything," Ron suggested, grinning at her.

She threw her pillow at him. He threw it back. She dodged and stuck out the tip of her tongue, grabbing the pillow and hugging it to prevent him snatching it back. Perhaps he might have, if they hadn't noticed that Harry's cheeks were turning red.

"We can wait if you want to, Harry," she said, putting the pillow down next to her, but keeping her hand on it. "If you don't feel safe about keeping the You-Know-What in your pocket you could put it in your Gringott's vault. It ought to be perfectly safe, if no one but us knows it's there."

"I think we need to learn how to do this ourselves," Harry said. laying the key flat again. "Do you think you could, Hermione? If we found the right books?"

"Course she could," Ron asserted. "Didn't I say once that she was brilliant but scary?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, but her mouth was twitching.

"Thanks for that, Ron. You can put that on my tombstone after I blow myself up."

"That isn't funny. Don't even joke about doing that," Ron said, the tips of his ears turning red.

"Who says I'm joking? That's what's likely to happen if I try to learn curse-breaking from a book. What if it turns out to be like Borage's Potions text, full of deliberate mistakes?" Actually, she wasn't sure they were deliberate, but she was giving the author the benefit of the doubt. (Although secretly, she wasn't convinced that ascribing ignorance rather than malice was an actual benefit.)

"Well, you never blew yourself up in Potions class," he argued.

"Lifting curses is a bit more dangerous than Potions class, Ron," she pointed out.

"Only when you're not standing next to Neville when he's brewing."

"He'd have been perfectly safe if Snape didn't harass him all the time," Harry said. "We did our O.W.L.s practicals at the same time and he was fine."

Letting her curls hang forward over her face, Hermione made a little grimace. Neville was a lovely person, but she wasn't sure Harry was right. After all, he'd begun melting cauldrons in their first lesson, before Snape ever addressed a direct word to him except roll call. It was true that Snape made him worse, though. She changed the subject again.

"Look, I'll do whatever we need to, but let's be a bit sensible. I haven't forgotten Dumbledore's withered hand, if you have, and he was a lot more experienced than me."

She'd have liked to add that he'd only survived because Snape got there in time, but she wasn't that silly. Besides, he'd told her not to defend him; it wouldn't help him and it would raise questions about her.

"We could ask Bill to recommend some books," Ron said, his brows wrinkled. "Except that would probably make him almost as suspicious as asking him to teach you. You could approach him by yourself, maybe, and say you were thinking about curse-breaking as a career and could he recommend some good books on the subject. He might even lend you his old textbooks."

"I suppose that would be better than nothing," Hermione said unenthusiastically. "But would that be advanced enough for breaking a curse that Voldemort set? I wish we'd thought of a different excuse last time so I could have been with you when he checked the locket. If I'd seen what spells he cast, I could have copied them."

There was a short silence as they studied different parts of the tatty old carpet on the floor. Then Ron's head shot up.

"You could see them," he said, "if we could get hold of a Pensieve!"

Hermione stared at him. His occasional flashes of brilliance always took her by surprise. Then practicality set in.

"But where are we going to find one?" she said gloomily. "I heard they're terrifically expensive and rare."

"Dumbledore had one," he said, leaning forward and thrusting out his chin.

Hermione leaned forward too and rested her chin in her hand.

"Yes, but we can't get hold of it," she objected.

"Snape had one too, didn't he? Harry said he looked in it during their lessons."

She closed her eyes and opened them. Ron's eyes were as blue as the midday sky. If he leaned just a little bit closer, she could trace the freckles on his nose with one finger.

"Yes, but we can't get hold of that one either," she said, blushing slightly. "Besides, it was probably the same one and he only borrowed it."

"Harry saw both of them. He'd probably know. Harry? Harry?"

They turned as one, suddenly aware that he'd dropped out of the conversation and was staring again at the eagle-head of the key, studying its fierce eyes as if he could see into them. He didn't notice them noticing him.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione said sharply. "Harry, watch out! Is it bewitching you? Harry! Put it down!"

Harry blinked and curled his fingers around it.

"I'm only thinking," he said. "You know, it's probably not protected at all."

"We can't know that!" she expostulated.

"Yes, but think about it, Hermione," Harry said reasonably. "He never had the chance, did he? He went straight from killing my dad to killing my mum – arguing with my mum and then killing her – so when would he have put protections on it?"

"He could have done it before," she urged.

Harry went on, unheeding.

"In fact, we don't even know if he had a chance to put a bit of his soul in it. He probably thought my death was the important one so he'd have been planning to do that after killing me and he never got the chance, did he?"

"Yes, but –"

"If it is a Horcrux, I can ask it. It would understand Parseltongue, like the first one."

Hermione gulped.

"Harry, Harry, don't –"

He stood up, still holding the key where he could see it face-to-face.

"I have to, Hermione. I need to know. Were my parents just obstacles to him or was he planning to use them for anchors? And if it was the second, then which parent was he using?"

"Yes, but not now," she said.

"I was there, Hermione. I saw it and lived it when I was a baby, and now I can only see it when there are Dementors. I can't wait, Hermione. Do you think you could, if it was you? I need to know now."

Harry's hand clenched around the key till the knuckles went white. He lifted it as if to hurl it against the wall. Hermione's fists clenched too and her mouth trembled. Ron looked from one to the other of them and took a long breath.

"He's right, Hermione. You can't expect him to wait. And he isn't going to trigger a protection just by talking to it. It will think it's talking to its master, won't it, because no one else knows Parseltongue."

"But – Harry, this isn't the only way! If we get a Pensieve, you could look at your own childhood memories. That would be safer. Just wait a little bit longer until we get one or at least until we find out if we can get one. Please, Harry."

But Harry shook his head and Ron's strong freckled arms held Hermione back.

"Sometimes you just don't understand, Hermione. He has to do this."

Harry put the key on the little table then pushed the table into the far corner and came back to stand beside them.

"Cast a shield, just in case," he told them.

They fumbled out their wands and said in unison "Protego." Harry licked his lips. He was better at switching to Parseltongue now.He didn't need to see a snake to speak it.

"_Are you awake, my ssnake?"_

A curl of mist emerged from the beak. The three friends drew a little closer together.

"_Yesss."_

Hermione leaned into Ron's shoulder. His arm slid round her waist and tightened. Harry didn't notice.

"_Do you remember when you were woken?" _he asked.

"_Yesss."_

"_Tell me, my ssnake. Sshow me your ssecretss."_

o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o

'Ask Snape' had been a very good idea, Hermione thought. She did so that night.

"I told the boys I had your book," she said.

He was a deeper shadow in the hedge, his face barely visible on a night this dark, but she could just make out that he nodded.

"I imagine you thought the time was right. Was it?"

She grimaced.

"Almost. It was Harry who brought up using your spells so I thought it would be less suspicious to tell them now that I had it than to wait till later. Ron was a bit suspicious, because I'd always been so against that book because of not knowing who wrote it and he didn't like that I seemed to find you as the writer less suspicious than a stranger. I think Harry was more surprised than anything," she said.

She could almost see his face now as her eyes got used to the darkness. He looked her over without expression.

"I suppose there was little choice. Very well. Was that all you wanted to tell me?"

She inched a little closer, her hands fidgeting in her pockets where he couldn't see. Trivial things first; she might forget to bring them up later.

"No, but first I have some things to ask. Mr Weasley told us today that they've postponed opening Hogwarts till the first of October. I don't suppose you know why? Has You-Know-Who threatened it directly?"

His eyes narrowed and his lips curled.

"He's threatened it directly or indirectly every year since you started there. Why should this year be different?"

She bit her lip. She should have known to expect his stonewalling, but somehow she never did. There was no point complaining; if he didn't think she needed to know yet, he wouldn't tell her.

"Tell me about Sectumsempra," she said.

"What did you want to know?"

She huffed a short exasperated breath.

"Why you wrote it. How you use it. Whether it's possible to control the force you put into it. And, um, whether it's the spell you used on Harry's dad the time he looked in your Pensieve." She paused. "Wait, was it your Pensieve?"

"No, it was Dumbledore's." His Adam's apple bobbed. "Sectumsempra? I mainly use it for chopping ingredients when I'm in a hurry or need extra hands, but it's effective enough in a duel, although there are many faster ways of killing. The control factors are intent and wand movement. The wider you wave your wand, the more extensive the injuries. Now, have you made any progress in more important areas?"

She knew it wasn't worth asking again. He'd said all he intended.

"We've got the Ravenclaw key. It was at Godric's Hollow and we've taken it to Grimmauld Place, because we couldn't think of anywhere safer to stay. Harry talked to it in Parseltongue today. It is a Horcrux – it must be or it couldn't talk Parseltongue, could it? – and it says it was made from his dad's death. But there's something wrong there. That doesn't make sense, does it? Why would You-Know-Who have made a Horcrux from the first person he killed that night? Why didn't he save it for Harry? He was the significant one, the prophecy child, not his parents."

Snape's face was a mask, but his fingers twitched once.

"They were significant enough. If you recall, they had defied him three times. Was the key warded? Did you disarm it?"

She studied him through narrowed eyes, but he was giving nothing away.

"It said it wasn't, but I persuaded the boys not to take the risk of trying. Actually, I suggested it might be a good idea to keep it until we find the next one, because we might think of other questions to ask. They didn't much like that, but they agreed to wait till Bill comes back or until we can get hold of a Pensieve – whichever comes first – so I can see how he checked for wards and hexes on the last one."

He nodded.

"The Dark Lord has always been adept at subterfuge. You'd be better advised not to ponder this news too deeply until you have verified that the key was speaking the truth about its wards. If it was, then we will discuss the other question and what it might mean." He shot her a searching look and his lips tightened. "Put it out of your head, Miss Granger. At this moment, it is pointless speculation."

That was a mistake. She knew him too well after six months of lessons, knew him better than anybody but Dumbledore ever had; he wouldn't have warned her off if he wasn't concealing something.

"You don't want me to think about what it means," she said slowly. "That means it's something you think I won't like. Do you think it would put me off cooperating with you or –"

She stared at him. He looked back with narrowed eyes, but he was saying nothing to defend himself. Which meant it was more important than whether or not she trusted him. Her lips parted. She knew what was most important to him; he'd told her.

_I will do whatever is necessary to keep Potter alive to do his work … Potter must not know … It would destroy him … After all is over, it will not matter…_

So her suspicions were correct. Voldemort had planned to make two Horcruxes that night. And the second one would have been from Harry's death, because he hadn't planned to kill Harry's mum. But then it went wrong and somehow Harry had wound up connected to Voldemort. They shared thoughts, they had twinned wands, and Harry was even a Parselmouth, like his enemy. And now they knew why. She gasped and put her clenched fist to her mouth.

"It's – It's Harry, isn't it? You think it means the last one's Harry!"

He wasn't looking at her now. His eyes were on the aspidistra bush he'd twice stopped her mutilating. Her chest felt small and squashed, and her throat ached with the effort of breathing. She shook her head and tried to speak, but her mouth was too dry.

"I told you to put it out of your head," he said. "Why would the Dark Lord have tried to kill Potter if he was the last one? They anchor him to the world."

She shook her head slowly.

"He isn't trying to kill Harry anymore. When we were in the Ministry, Malfoy told the other Death Eaters to be gentle with Harry, but they could kill the rest of us. And you told the other Death Eaters the same when Harry was chasing you. He told me. You even took the Crucio off him. You said he had to be left to the Dark Lord –"

"So that he can do it himself –"

"– Maybe he just didn't know at first. But he felt Harry in the snake with him when he attacked Mr Weasley and then he did. It was then that his orders changed, wasn't it? About the time you started teaching him Occlumency!"

"You are jumping to conclusions, Miss Granger."

She stepped back, her hands pushing away the empty air in front of her.

"I can't – I – Oh, it can't be, it mustn't be!"

His hard eyes glared into hers. He stood tall and straight as a stone tower.

"It might not be. We know nothing as of yet," he said.

She licked her lips and shook her head again wildly.

"But it could be. You think it is, don't you, or you wouldn't have tried to stop me thinking about it. It's him, isn't it? It's him!"

He put both hands on her shoulders and shook her till her words trailed off into sobs.

"Cease these hysterics at once," he hissed. "We don't know what it means yet or even if the key was telling the truth. You _know_ who was talking through it; I would not trust anything from that quarter."

His hands bit cruelly into her flesh and he gave her another shake. She stared up at him helplessly.

"If it is him," he said, "and remember that it may not be because this means only that the Dark Lord probably intended to make two on that occasion, not that he succeeded – If it is, we'll deal with it. We may be able to destroy the anchor without mortally injuring your friend. There are possibilities; removing the scar alone, perhaps, or placing him in a deathlike sleep as we draw it out –"

"Not if it's a Horcrux," she whispered. "We need him awake to speak Parseltongue."

"No. The headmaster had other ways of disarming them. If it comes to that, you must call me and I'll assist you. If there is any way, we'll find it. Until then, let it go. He must not find out that it's a possibility. If you can't keep a calm demeanour around your friends, I shall have to Obliviate these last few minutes from your consciousness. Do you understand?"

"Do you promise?" she demanded. "You don't even like him! Do you promise?"

Their eyes met. It was months since he'd slipped into her mind, but she remembered the feeling and welcomed him in.

"_Yes, I promise."_

**A/N In OotP, "Snape's Worst Memory", the text says that Snape "directed his wand straight at James. There was a flash of light…" so it seems clear that he didn't miss; the gash was exactly what he intended. In HBP, "Sectumsempra", Harry "bellowed" the spell and "waved his wand wildly". There is no mention of the "flash of light", but that doesn't prove it was a different spell. Canon isn't consistent about mentioning flashes of light, for example, when Harry casts Stupefy in the third Triwizard task, there's no mention of the light it should have produced.**


End file.
